ARCADIA, Fla., Oct. 27, 2009
Obama Touts Modern Electric Power Grid
In Florida, President Makes Pitch for Renewable Energy, Announced $3.4 in Grants from Stimulus Funds
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President Barack Obama speaks during his tour of the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Touring a field of solar energy panels in west-central Florida, the president urged greater use of several technologies to make America's power transmission system more efficient and better suited to the digital age. The projects include installing "smart" electric meters in homes, automating utility substations, and installing thousands of new digital transformers and grid sensors.
"There's something big happening in America in terms of creating a clean-energy economy," Obama said, although he added there is much more to be done.
He likened the effort to the ambitious development of the national highway system 50 years ago. He said modernization would lead to a "smarter, stronger and more secure electric grid."
Under muggy skies, Obama toured the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, which is designed to generate enough energy for about 3,000 residential customers of the utility FPL. It is the nation's largest photovoltaic electricity facility.
Obama said a modern grid could give consumers better control over their electricity usage and costs, and spur development of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.
The $3.4 billion in grants from the government's January economic stimulus program will be matched by $4.7 billion in private investments. The smallest grant will be $400,000 and the largest $200 million.
"We have a very antiquated (electric grid) system in our country," Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change, told reporters. "The current system is outdated, it's dilapidated."
Matt Rogers, the Energy Department official involved in the program, said the 100 projects were selected from 400 proposed. The money will be distributed over the next two months and the work is expected to be done over the next one to three years, he said.
Even as Obama pitched more efficient and renewable energy use, his trip to Arcadia made it clear that old habits and dependencies die hard. He arrived in a motorcade of gas-guzzling SUVs. While waiting for the motorcade to get started, several vans kept their engines running to provide air conditioning for occupants escaping a hot Florida sun.
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- Gigawatts of power can come from solar voltaic and solar thermal production in the southwest if our electrical grid can be upgraded, and untold megawatts can be saved through better modern equipment and transmission lines. Our infrastructure is okay at best for now, but our needs continue to expand and our current infrastructure simply cannot handle tomorrow's needs.
Besides, improving our infrastructure puts Americans to work in America. - Reply to this comment
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- "Even as Obama pitched more efficient and renewable energy use, his trip to Arcadia made it clear that old habits and dependencies die hard. He arrived in a motorcade of gas-guzzling SUVs. While waiting for the motorcade to get started, several vans kept their engines running to provide air conditioning for occupants escaping a hot Florida sun."
What a 'CHEAP" shot CBS. You would have the POTUS address an audience in a filthy sweaty shirt because he had to walk from Washington DC to appease 'YOU'!!!!
When you and every other citizen of this country ditches the auto and walks where he must go (winter and summer), you might be able to say something about the POTUS's mode of travel. Or maybe you would wish someone to report on your (CEOs) method of standing at a urinal, (or whatever)
- "Even as Obama pitched more efficient and renewable energy use, his trip to Arcadia made it clear that old habits and dependencies die hard. He arrived in a motorcade of gas-guzzling SUVs. While waiting for the motorcade to get started, several vans kept their engines running to provide air conditioning for occupants escaping a hot Florida sun."
- I used to be a republican, but it is the republicans that changed my political stance. All the, what I thought were good honest christian conservatives that wanted me to pass on emails full of hate, false and malicious stories against Obama. All the people that I had always respected and looked up to asking me to spread hate thru false and malicious rumors. This is just not something I can be a part of. To date no progressive has ever asked me to do such things, so I side with the progressives, and will do so untill they ask me to be dishonest.
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- I used to be a republican, but it is the republicans that changed my political stance. All the, what I thought were good honest christian conservatives that wanted me to pass on emails full of hate, false and malicious stories against Obama. All the people that I had always respected and looked up to asking me to spread hate thru false and malicious rumors. This is just not something I can be a part of. To date no progressive has ever asked me to do such things, so I side with the progressives, and will do so untill they ask me to be dishonest.
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- The "smart" grid is all about marketing.
The "grid" is already pretty smart AND the most efficient management is LOCAL not nationally.
Got a call from our utility to put in a monitor in our house so they could tell info on utilization..... I said no because it did not accomplish anything for me. It is just a waste of taxpayer money as it is not an "active" device.
I guess they taught electrical engineering in Harvard Law....... - Reply to this comment
- well, it's really comforting to see that Obama has time to fly to VA to campaign for a soon-to-be democratic loser...and then to walk around some solar panels...mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm.
AND STILL HE CAN'T RESPOND TO OUR MILITARY NEEDS!
He is the "Commander-In-Chief"..time to start making some DECISIONS that are inline with your DUTIES!
worst...president...ever - Reply to this comment
- are you sure that you want "smart meters" in your home? do you know that these meters will have the ability to regulate the power that is delivered to your home? and, when the consumption hits an arbitrarily imposed limit, your power will be shut off? what then?
do you know that CA is going so far as to ban big screen televisions?
why, they are power hogs - and continue to use power when turned off.
the $ 8 billion that they are raising, Fed and private funds, is a drop in the bucket.
do we need to be energy independent? yes. can we do it in this century yes - is 'green' the only way to go? hmmm!
ask the folks that tried to do a wind farm off Martha's Vineyard. they did not do so well in court.
can we drop generators in the Gulf Stream and generate power? yes. at what cost? well that has not been determined, and may be cost prohibitive.
it all gets back to the basic fact of life - how much is all this going to cost? and is now the time to do it? the nation is, for all intents and pursposes, bankrupt. can we keep supporting an out of control Congress with our tax dollars? NO!
government is not the answer to all problems, the sooner the left sees that - the better off we will be. for 200 years business has thrived in the USA. now, Congress wants to tax it into extinction,
regulate it out of business, and assure us that your great great grandchildren will be the indentured servants of the nations holding the note on America. - Reply to this comment
- Solar energy has been around for a long time; why has it never been used?
Does it really work, or only function as a backup system?
I think there is still a long way to go to get clean efficient energy. It certainly won't be done, by always foisting the burden on consumers and allowing profit margin to rule. Capitalism has halted the progress of clean energy for over 50 years; are we supposed to believe that it will now show an answer? Oil prices provide the answer to why we don't have clean energy: The fix take away the consumer's freedom to travel; while industry still creates all the problems. - Reply to this comment
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- Solar PV panels work, but they are one of the most costly forms of electric generation. They only produce when the sun is out, rather than 24/7 like a coal plant. We could produce lots of our energy from solar PV panels and use pumped hydro and renewable methane combined cycle plants. This would cost money and maybe add $20 per month to the average home electric bill. That is the problem, everyone talks about cleaner energy, but $20 per month...that sounds like a LOT.
- What a concept! A single panel that will normally provide power in light for almost 25 years. Coal?? First you dig it, then it has to be transported, then burned, then removed, and then transported to a waste site. lump of coal??
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- The Bush administration actually PAID coal power plants to have the government haul away their fly ash produced from burning coal. That must have been part of their "clean coal" idea which is a contradiction in terms. Then they did the FutureGen program to design and prototype a cleaner coal fired power plant. At the end of that administration they pulled the plug and said that they were on their own, too expensive. But one thing Bush did was allow coal companies to blow off mountain tops and dump the refuse into rivers and streams. For the final insult, the ignored the law and allowed coal power plants to expand without upgrading.
- This is exactly what the gov't should be doing. With a modern (high voltage, DC) grid, electricity can be switched from generating location to usage location with minimal losses and fuss. No one else can do this, its like the interstate system. Kudo's to Obama for doing it.
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- It's interesting that all good news and all bad news is good news to right wing nuts.
Why do they want the country to fail? - Reply to this comment
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- Actually, BeckieBest, the rare rightwing "nut" is just like the leftwing "nuts" that spouted the same hatred and resistance when a Republican is in office.
Now, as for fiscal conservatives and/or Republicans (not always the same), we want the country to EXCELL. We just want to be able to pay for it, not give up our rights, and apply commonsense, practical intelligence to the very real and serious issues facing the USA.
How about you?
- Actually, BeckieBest, the rare rightwing "nut" is just like the leftwing "nuts" that spouted the same hatred and resistance when a Republican is in office.
- Billions more that he is spending when we don't have it, thousands more with his constant traveling......bankrupting this country is hurry with all he is doing!!
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- You can spend $100 billion per year on Iraq for more than 6 years, but not one dime for a modern energy policy. Bush's energy "policy" was more tax breaks for oil companies that were already making 10s of billions of dollars in profits off of all of us. People will pay and extra $1000 per year to foreigners for the oil to make gasoline but not one dime to make things better here....very odd.
- Many people, including democrats, republicans, nations thought they had WMD's. It has been shown that Saddam wanted everyone to think they had them. That aside we liberated a country (yes still work to do), brought democracy to Iraq. Did it cost? Yes. Is Obama's plan in the wars he is heading cost? Yes. Is he supporting the troups and what they need? NOPE! Who wanted to drill here and now? Bush! Who hasn't let that happen? BO! As for energy policy, cap and trade when we are already going bankrupt is crap to say the least. Unemployment now at almost 10% (17 if you don't count temp people). This is not the time to be doing all of this! Health care reform as the Dem's want it will only put us deeper and deeper in debt. We have to stop this administration from growing and growing and spending and spending!
- To have more wind turbines, we are going to have to have an ungraded grid. With moder meters, the customer should be able to monitor their power usage and prices so that there are no surprises when they open the monthly bill.
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- Wind turbine farms sound so wonderful; everyone thinks so....until someone tries to put them near their house. Wind turbines have been proven to be very unreliable. No human can guarantee the wind will or will not blow.
As for my power usage: Monitoring is a good idea; but the modern grid doesn't just let ME monitor; those in control of the power will also be monitoring AND will have the ability to reduce power to my house whenever they darn well want to.
- Wind turbine farms sound so wonderful; everyone thinks so....until someone tries to put them near their house. Wind turbines have been proven to be very unreliable. No human can guarantee the wind will or will not blow.
