Who has the corporate power to lobby for distributed renewable energy generation and storage?  Google does.  An eco-friendly corporation of creative people.  Maybe the corporate leopard (at least this one)can change spots?

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/6/18/23499/4714#17

The Hymotion Prius plugin conversion uses the A123 battery pack.  12.5k extra for that, rumored to be 9.5k when introduced to the public.

The Ford Escape conversion is important too.  why?  Because government agencies like the US Forest service are required to buy american.

My guess is that the good people at google will use this tiny experiment to launch internet billing services for buying/selling renewable energy over the future renewable distributed generation and storage grid.

That will make google the new power company.  Gleaning a few tenths of a cent from each kwh exchanged.  Another mega billion revenue stream?  yep.  

Watch for broadband wireless internet that uses the power grid for a backbone and antenna to enable this necessary leap forward.  

You will sell kwh into the grid, from your solar or wind system at home, or your vehicle batteries or your vehicle backup generator (fuel cell/microturbine running on your own home generated biogas sometime soon) into the grid, then buy some back to recharge your plugin vehicle batteries at work or the shopping center or school or even inductive (the new tuned resonant induction system from MIT) strips under the highway.

Wisconsin electric is paying 22 cents per kwh for solar PV.  A gold rush in distributed renewable power is coming and google will be opening up an assay office over the internet.  That's my guess.  Call me for details google I can work from home, hehey.  

Prairie National park and Wind Farm, Wetland National Park and pumped hydro storage for the national power grid.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/6/4/16758/96095/#comment9

50 square miles of extra resovoir would be no problem at all.  Especially distributed around the nation.

It also restores aquifers to have that much water around.  Some scheme to recover and store flood waters is sorely needed.  This could be integrated with the pumped hydro energy storage.

I favor shunting flood waters into wetlands myself.  The pumped hydro storage water could be taken from those wetlands and returned.

This could be a huge benefit in terms of GHG, by replacing fossil generation with renewables backed by pumped hydro storage.  And in terms of water conservation.  

We are at crisis stage already on drought problems from GHG disaster, water shortage is already threatening economic growth.  Australia's more extreme problems are a warning.

Many of these various energy solutions seem to fit symbiotically with other environmental solutions.  Such as prairie restoration, wind power, carbon sequestration by prairie soil, and biomass energy sources to supplement renewables.

Maybe our representaticves will start listening to us more closely if we come up with better coordinated solutions like this.  It's worth a try.

Just this additional point.  Direct wind powered water pumps that pump into storage whenever the wind blows, eliminates a whole host of problems with variability and power grid stability too.

Something to consider where high wind areas would coincide with large wetland resevoir areas like on the great plains.  The plains some have huge lakes.  And a lot of wetlands on the edges.

This stuff is a conservationist's dream.  Teddy Roosevelt is probably smiling down from a national park in heaven at efforts like this right now.  That's gotta be a positive karmic effect, hehey.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/6/1/7418/90981#15

I'm thinking of it as an ongoing publicity device rather than a real strike.

We really need higher profile for solutions that actually work right now.  By demanding we get payed for the renewable energy we generate, it also creates the basis for a class action to get access to the power grid.

A level playing field where we can buy and sell renewable kwh amongst the like minded on energy policy reform.  

This would create more publicity.  Would these efforts ever be succsessful by themselves in overturning the status quo?  Doubtfull.

Here is the problem we face.  Any green minded politician we support will likely be targeted for swift boating by the power monopolists if they propose reform.  

But with grassroots pushing hard enough, our green politicos (mainly democrats, excepting exceptional republicans like Kristy Whitman) can say they are merely responding to their constituent's direction, as democracy is supposed to do.

What will the swift boaters say?  These eco-terrorists are trying to tax your gas and raise the price you pay for electricity!  

Our guys and gals can then say no, they are trying instead to bring relief for the people who elected them from high energy prices and climate disaster and endless oil wars brought on by corporate monopolists and their bought and payed for members of government.

We need to be idealistic and politically practical at the same time.  My epiphany after seeing our new (progressive) congressman here negotiating the crowds at a fundraiser and town meeting.  Pragmatic idealism.  

It might just work where politics as usual is continuing to fail miserably in the face of disaster ...economic, environmental, and international.

Oh and BTW, what percentage of the workers of this world has any labor strike ever encompassed?  1%?  Maybe.  Look at the vast improvement in working conditions, pay, safety, health, and pensions that this tiny percentage has won for the rest.  

There is phenomenal power in collective bargaining.