In the previous paper
I proposed that we put on the ballot for voter approval a new state
department called the Department of Energy Management. It would control
and manage new Washington State sources of energy production and
manufacturing. It’s purpose is to keep energy cost to Washington State
citizens and businesses, at the lowest price possible. I looked at
sugar beets for ethanol fuel production as well as raising cattle for
methane and methanol production.
In
order to have cheap energy you have to remove the for-profit motive
from energy manipulation that determines the spot price for energy. You
cannot expect a for-profit corporation not to want to give more wages
and benefits to their employees in an effort to stay in pace with
inflationary pressures that increase the cost of living. For-profit
companies also have shareholders and corporate officers that must be
kept satisfied.
As
far as I am concern, energy is among the most important of all national
security issues, right up there with air, water, food, and shelter. In
order to have a prosperous and healthy economy, it's necessary that we
have a surplus supply of energy to meet all of our needs, as well as
unexpected needs caused by natural disasters. Energy is a part of
nearly everything in our lives and is a portion of everyone’s monthly
budget. The quantity and quality of these energy derivatives are
dependent upon the user’s standard of living and preferences. When you
take away these preferences, you take away choices and remove
competition to out-produce, and thus lower prices. This is a form of
price fixing and a form of monopoly in which a consortium of business
enterprises are manipulating supply and price in an attempt to keep
their business profits high.
We
are stuck with the need for electrical power for our homes and
businesses, so we need to produce more electrical power to meet our
population growth demand. I do not know what deal the State of
Washington made with the Federal Government to build Grand Coulee Dam
but our state gave up to the Federal Authority its own right in so many
respects to manage its own river system. Just as President Carter gave
away the Panama Canal that took so much American life and expense to
build, why can’t the current President give back to the State of
Washington the Grand Coulee Dam? Hydrocarbon rich states in our country
receive royalties to their General Fund and their citizens from annual
sales of their hydrocarbon products. What does Washington State receive
for hydroelectric power generated on our own river system? Don’t think
for a moment that Grand Coulee Dam has not been paid off since it was
built. It has paid for itself several times over, so that is not a
factor. The Grand Coulee Dam is responsible with irrigating large arid
portions of state that lack water to produce food in some of the most
fertile soil around. To enjoy this bounty indirectly
from
building the Grand Coulee Dam, natural trade-offs were made, such as
the loss of salmon and steelhead in our creek and stream tributaries
that feed the Columbia River system. Also prehistoric human settlements
and all of the natural shoreline habitat that took nature ten to
hundred thousands of years to develop were lost. Sediment from
accelerated erosion processes have silted many streams and creeks as
well as destroyed fish spawning beds. Bank and slope erosion
along
the dam system, as well the tributaries, contribute sediment that make
it necessary to constantly dredge bars and sediment buildups that
constrict the river system.
Since
we have limited control over our current energy sources to our
citizens, our citizens are at the mercy of whatever these energy
providers want and can charge for their products. There is no serious
incentive for these energy providers to lower prices for their
products. And since they are not willing to invest their profits into
developing new cheap energy for the good of the people, and since that
investment is so great that an individual cannot fund it, I would like
our state to develop tidal, wind, solar, and geothermal energy sources
for the people.
Additionally
I feel we should support a requirement that every new business of
substantial size, will themselves have some form of alternative energy
production plant that at minimum will help meet their power usage
requirements. Major benefits of this include that they are not
competing against people on fixed incomes who are using power for their
own basic home living needs. Of course this requirement is unlikely to
happen without government regulation.
I
would also like our major counties and cities that have waste treatment
plants, to go to the next level by becoming 100% green. The
next
phase is for them to build methane gas generators from the BILLIONS of
gallons of human bodily waste. Everyone sees the pictures of landfills
and the piles of waste dumped there, but few ever see the sewers that
are underground creeks and rivers of human bodily waste. We already are
paying a lot of tax dollars and monthly service fees for sewage
treatment and if we went to the next step, I believe we can cut energy
costs and be more environmentally friendly. From this waste it's
readily possible to generate enough methane gas to produce a good deal
of power, as well as convert the methane gas into liquid methanol to
fuel all of the government vehicles belonging to the police, fire, and
school buses. Methanol is a very clean fuel with very high octane.
There are hundreds of landfills throughout our state. We should be
lining these areas to trap their methane gas to utilize for our power
needs.
It
is very hard for me to understand why we have not developed more
geothermal power generators when we live in a state with so many active
volcanoes. It is also hard for me to believe that we have not developed
any tidal generator facilities when we have so many tidal areas in our
state. These forms of power production could be localized and have a
known rate of cost and power production.
Solar
and wind power production are not totally dependable as these require
fluctuating natural conditions to generate power. I would like to see a
percentage of the cost of generating methane, bio-fuels, geothermal,
hydroelectric, nuclear, and petroleum-based production, to go to
funding solar and wind power generators for individual
and commercial use. I believe the cost to make home and
business
power systems will drop considerably in the future due to mass
production. The first VCR, computer, and HDTV all cost many times more
when they first came out and look what they go for now.
Wind Power Electrical Generation Project
I
have been researching wind power and solar power as a passive source of
electrical power to help offset our high demand and prices. If we could
make them affordable, more people would purchase them. The only way to
make them affordable is to mass produce them ourselves, which would
help with our unemployment numbers. I am looking at large industrial
scale windmills for power generation. I fully support us funding a
statewide effort to construct 6,000 10 megawatt windmills for power
production in our state. One of these 10 megawatt windmills can produce
enough power for 5,000 homes. These windmills are not cheap and cost
well over a million dollars apiece to manufacture. Also there is
investment in land, powerhouses, lines, installation, and maintenance.
These warranted machines have a 20-30 year operating life. Most aging
is due to bearing fatigue and rotor balance problems. However parts can
be replaced.
Instead
of buying the windmills from another entity, we should manufacture them
ourselves with Washington State employees. By manufacturing these
windmills ourselves, we can produce them at the lowest cost possible
since we would have no profit motive. We would establish several
facilities to manufacture 100 windmills a month. This will employ in
our state many skilled laborers and technicians. We will need windmill
installation crews and site development workers to prepare an area for
each windmill.
It will
take roughly five years to install all 6,000 windmills under this
Washington State Wind Power Program. This power project is something
akin to the building of Grand Coulee Dam, but unlike with Grand Coulee
Dam, this time the citizens of only Washington State will be the ones
reaping the benefits of this new abundant supply of cheap
electrical power.
It
is my intent to give every Washington citizen a bonus royalty of 25,000
kilowatt hours of power annually for partnering with the state in
funding this very important project. This bonus is in addition to the
marked financial savings in the energy expenses Washingtonians would
enjoy. It may take five years or more for this royalty to begin to be
available. The annual production of all 6,000 windmills is estimated to
be almost $9 billion in electrical power at five cents a kilowatt hour
at 33% efficiency. Every 5% increase above 33% mean an extra $1.25
billion in power production. It may be necessary that we allow new
state residents to become part of this royalty program only until a
certain breaking point where we must stop so as to be fair to the
original Washington State citizens that were taxed for this and thus
are it’s early investors.
I
figure that 25,000 kilowatt hours is enough power to provide for an
individual of modest means. It comes out to $1250 at five cents a
kilowatt hour over the entire year. Thus a family of four or more would
come out with a windfall under this royalty package. More specifically
a family of four would receive annual credit of 4 x 25,000 kilowatt
hours i.e. 100,000 kilowatt hours, and for every child more, another
25,000 kilowatt hours. If your 4 member family uses only a third of the
100,000 kilowatt hours you’re entitled to, you can sell that surplus to
a private power company. In this case it would mean an extra $3300 for
the family to use for other things like food or clothing. Though it’s
the customer’s money to spend as they wish, I would prefer they use it
to purchase home power windmills and install solar cells to become
almost 100% self-reliant, even in cases of power outages and storms.
Installing these home power units would have the added benefit of
appreciating the value of a home.
The
cost of the windmills being used in this Washington State Power
Generation Project is expected to be $10-12 billion. I have broken down
the project into a five year plan costing $2 billion a year for the
five years. We would see $12 million dollars every month for every 100
windmills on the grid and should be producing almost $350 million
annually in two years and $550 million annually in three years. I
estimate the day we have all 6,000 windmills on the energy grid we
would have already paid off a lot of the construction cost by also
selling the power to private power utilities brokers who then resell it
to others at a higher rate. My intent however is not to enrich private
utility companies with cheap power for them to profit off of. Instead
my intent is to produce power more efficiently without having to buy
the power companies out and make them into public companies. Maybe
later on into the project we may have enough surplus money to make an
offer to buyout these private companies and incorporate them into a
state public works type program. Again it is my intent to make
inexpensive electrical power so readily available in our state that our
citizens share in its success financially. The private power companies
will not be upset with possibly losing you as a customer as they can
sell their electrical power to the National Power Grid. Private power
companies would no longer be obligated to provide full power to our
homes and businesses and can act as power flow regulators to provide
power at peak consumption periods and when the wind isn’t blowing
and/or when it’s night and the solar cells aren’t working.
In
ten to fifteen years of power generation, these windmills will need
substantial maintenance and parts replacement. Even though they are
built to last twenty to thirty years, it would be prudent at all times
to have replacement parts available for 1,500 units. It is hoped that
down the road technology will advance and even more efficient
wind-powered generators will be developed that can produce power in the
gigawatt range. A gigawatt generator would produce a hundred times more
power than the 10 megawatt generator being used. If we had 6,000
windmill generating a gigawatt of power, it would produce over $2
billion of power every day. It's my desire for our state to become a
major producer of wind and solar power in our nation. Remember, in
return for this huge investment for cheap power, you will receive not
only generous credits for your own electrical use but the opportunity
to sell your share back to the system. It is very likely that some or
more of these windmills will be upgraded in twenty years or less with
higher producing generators. This upgrade can be done with
comparatively less expense. Our state could be a major power broker of
the nation and businesses will flock to Washington State. We would
improve our employment market in a variety of ways including by
becoming major manufacturers of wind turbine power assemblies and solar
cell equipment for industrial and home use. We would not only be
producing electricity and products for our own use but for national and
global use, creating major industries in our state.
I
hope you enjoyed reading about this wind energy program and I hope we
can fund something like this soon. It comes out to under a dollar a day
for the next five years for every citizen in our state to fund this
project. This is just a little over $300 a year for something that will
pay back perhaps a hundred times that amount over its life, and maybe a
thousand times if upgraded in another 20 to 30 years. We wouldn’t care
if a Washington State citizen received their bonus royalty of 25,000
kilowatt hour (which is separate from the standard discounted energy
Washingtonians would receive) each year to use or sell. By becoming
power brokers ourselves it will lead to energy self-reliance for
Washington State.
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Washington State Energy
Self-Reliance Program