"America Goes Dark"

Try building a big dam today. Hell, American Express is running a commercial where some guy is bragging about how he is working to take down a dam somewhere in the Northwest.

We used to brag about building dams. Now we brag about tearing them down.

I wouldn't try to build a big dam today for the same reason I wouldn't try to start a blacksmith business. The time is past for those.

But a nationwide smart grid could be today's equivalent of rural electrification. And a network of high speed rails today's equivalent of the Interstate Highway System.

We have to stop thinking "nation wide" and start thinking local. Nothing nation wide makes sense as what is good for New England is bad for the South West and visea versa. Responsible government for 300 million people is unworkable the only way to govern 300 million people is totalitarianism.

And yet we are subsidizing windmills like crazy: More environmental impact, greater expense, all for unreliable power. And at least with dams we get a big lake out of the bargain...not to mention flood control (and reliable power too).

Is it any wonder people have had enough of this ridiculous, agenda-driven spending?

To sum up, Russ is praising with feint dams.

Dams and windmills are one thing, the grid is another.

No matter what future is realistically envisioned for the future of energy in this country, the movement of electricity from point A to points B, C, D, E, and F is a constant. Doesn't matter whether the electricity comes from coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, water, earth or sun, the grid will be at the very heart of it. No matter what we do to generate electricity, we will need the grid to sort it, shuffle it, and deliver it to where it is needed when it is needed.

As our current grid is an improvised patchwork that is not up to the needs of the present never mind the future, I would think the building of a unified smart grid would be something quite a few folks from left to right and across the middle could get behind. A smart grid is the perfect national project. Not even the most fervent independent power generator wants anything to do with the nightmare of constructing power lines and the headache of coordinating one set of lines with another set of lines.

(clutch and shift)

There are two problems with taxation. One is the loss of personal money. That's a big one. But the other is the sense that not only is your money being taken, but that it is being wasted and pissed away into nothing by a bunch of irresponsible assholes. There would be a lot less resentment and battle if the taxes intended for economic stimulus and job creation went for a nice, shiny new smart grid that saved electrons by the billions and billions every day it was in operation instead of lining the billfolds of crooked bankers, welfare queens, and assorted warlords and mercenaries.

I believe it would be good for this country to build something big, smart, and visible again. We have had a forty-year dry spell. Time for another moon shot.


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"No matter what we do to generate electricity, we will need the grid to sort it, shuffle it, and deliver it to where it is needed when it is needed."

Not when I work out the kinks in my solar- and wind-powered propeller beanie.

When the power went out on the East Coast in 1965 my town had power because we had locally generated hydro-electric and a local distribution system.

Smart grid will be great and you can build it on the moon if you can get there before the environmentalists do.

"What is wrong with dams?"

A partial answer.

Dams kill rivers. No hyperbole there. They kill the scenery and the ecosystems and all else. That looms larger in the west because riparian areas are where most of the life is, or was. Glen Canyon was reported to be (and appears to have been) remarkably beautiful.

In the resulting reservoirs, nothing grows between the low- and high-water marks. Lake Powell has a dirty bathtub ring at that point.

The fluctuating water flows destroy wildlife habitat downstream.

Fish species get creamed.

All the reservoirs will ultimately silt up and become mud flats with concrete waterfalls. Won't take that long, either.

Dams were created chiefly to support irrigation agriculture, which is the agricultural equivalent of strip mining. Salinization poisons and kills the soil pretty quickly. Much reclaimed land in the west will go out of production in this century as a result of it. Salinization of the soil contributes to the fact that desertification is proceeding faster in the western US than in westen Africa.

Dams are the hub of all that was wrong in the development of the west, much of it proceeding from a desire to turn the west into Ohio rather than adapting ourselves to it. Wallace Stegner referred to the dams in the west as "original sin." We're fighting a prolonged battle with geology and nature. An arrogant fool's battle. We'll lose and should lose.

"Glen Canyon Dam provides 5% of all the electricity in Arizona and 13% of all the electricity in Utah."

The energy is nice.

"Would you rather replace that with a coal burning plant for the last 44 years?"

If that were the choice, probably. But that's like asking whether I'd prefer to support a crack habit with pimping or burglary.