Bourne's sartorial sumpremecy

Look, I'm not here at the Clinton Global Initiative to hobnob and gawk.  I'm here to work for you.   For example, Robert Kennedy Jr. just finished talking about how to turn all Americans into energy entrepreneurs by allowing us to tap into an updated and modernized electric grid freed from all the arcane and byzantine rules each state uses to restrict access to the grid, which of course requires updating and modernizing the grid, and selling our self-generated electric power.

Would work like this.  You have solar collectors on your house.  There are times during the day when you're not using the power being collected and stored.  You ought to be able to arrange to send it out over the grid and make money doing it.

That's interesting stuff, and it doesn't matter to me that it's Robert Kennedy Jr talking.  He's just the spokesman for an old idea whose time came twenty years ago and that ought to have been acted upon long before this.

And it doesn't matter to me in the least that Matt Damon's in the next room.  No, it doesn't.

Kennedy was talking about developing alternative energies a bit earlier.  He called the American Midwest "the Saudi Arabia of wind."---but the grid doesn't reach out there.  He mentioned a 92 mile by 92 mile patch of land out in the Southwestern desert that could provide gigawatts upon gigawatts of solar power---but the grid doesn't reach out there either.  Expanding, modernizing, freeing up from bureaucratic clogs and regulatory mazes will---

Did I mention Matt Damon's just down the hall?

He's shiny.

I mean his glows.  His skin, his hair, his eyes.  His suit.

But I'm not here to gawk.

Comments

[Rana]

how to turn all Americans into energy

Dang - that's a scary idea!

(I know it's a typo of some sort, but the wording of that just struck me.)

As you note, it's good that these ideas are getting more attention, even if the people who've long championed them have had to sit to the side while the Big Names get the attention.

[Jennifer]

how to turn all Americans into energy

Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!

[Lance]

Whoops. Soylent Green is right. Thanks, J and R. I fixed it.

[Linkmeister]

There are two forms of solar systems; one is the passive collector that most people have which typically heats the water in the heater tank, and one is the much more expensive system which does actually allow you to generate power. At the moment that variety typically requires photovoltaic cells.

This knowledge is hard-learned and often even harder to explain to people, who think the $5K-$8K solar panels they install should let them sell power back to the utility. Not so, grasshopper; you gotta spend $15K-$20K for that kind.

(All numbers approximate.)