Our CEO Visits the Hill
August 1st, 2008 | Posted by WeCanSolveIt
Our CEO, Cathy Zoi, told a congressional committee that there are no technological or material obstacles preventing the US from achieving the goal of generating 100% of our electricity from clean sources within 10 years.
She testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on the same day that Exxon Mobil announced the largest quarterly profits ever by an American company.
“Many Americans have a hard time thinking about our energy future, largely because their energy present is so challenging,” she said. “Staying on our present track is an invitation to sustained higher prices.” Read her testimony here.
The hearing was called by Committee Chair Rep. Ed Markey in the wake of Al Gore’s Repower America speech in mid-July. Markey is the author of one of the few bills in Congress that proposes solutions appropriate to the scale of the climate crisis.
“Meeting the challenge to repower America will involve simultaneous work on three technical fronts,” Zoi told the Committee. “One, get the most out of the energy we currently produce. Two, rapidly deploy the clean energy technologies that we already know can work. Three, create a new smart, integrated grid to deliver power economically from where it is generated to where people live.”
Zoi also stressed the potential cost savings of the switch to clean energy. “The most important cost figures to consider may be the ones we’ll avoid. American utilities will spend roughly $100 billion this year on coal and natural gas to fuel power plants. And more next year, and the year after that — until we make the switch to renewable fuels that are free and limitless.”
Another Committee witness was Greg Yurek, CEO of American Superconductor Corp. He said his company’s new superconductor wires can carry 10 times the power transmitted along traditional copper cables. These wires have the potential to double the power capacity of wind turbines. That in turn would help provide the backbone for a modern, “smart” energy grid that would allow consumers to sell electricity back to the grid through power made in their homes or stored in plug-in cars.
“Grid modernization with superconductor cables and other energy technologies will provide the capacity needed for the wide use of plug-in electric vehicles,” Yurek said.
Zoi described the tens of millions of new jobs could be created as the country implements a clean electricity system. Domestic jobs ranging from manufacturing, construction and installation, to engineering design and material science can be expected from a commitment to “Re-Power America.”
7 Responses to “Our CEO Visits the Hill”
The link to Cathy’s testimony seems to be broken.
Thanks for catching this, Mike. The link to Cathy’s testimony has been fixed above — you can also find it here: http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/336/
I find this to be encouraging and helpful. Many of the views support the real answers and I hope to see them implemented ASAP. I had heard earlier, as early as two years ago, that we could purchase kits to run our vehicles on cooking oil or electricity, within the $100. range. I find this not to be true from what I have read and seen. Does this sound right to you that the price is so low? It really isn’t low to me but to many others it does seem like a very low price to convert their vehicles. My guess is that is low, other wise, thousands if not millions would already have done it, in this gas crunch situation it would seem so longical. I am sure that the cost is and the newness would scare away many, any response to these questions? It would be well appreciated.
Thank-you, DENISE
I hope more people start to see the importance of clean energy. Seriously it gives me a headache when people don’t understand that.
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Awesome blog- will come back again.
I had no trouble at all, perhaps you had a lag on your computer. I would be happy to try to send the link to you?
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