Here's an interesting new study from the American Wind energy Asociation (AWEA).   It's a PDF and takes a few seconds to load.  It says that by tripling the installation rate of wind power we could power 20% of the grid with wind by 2015.  No extra storage or backup systems would be needed, just some grid upgrade to connect the machines to the existing grid.

How positive a step would this be?  Is it enough?

I think with conservation and a renewable smart grid it would be.  Enough to nearly eliminate GHG emissions.

By installing solar cogeneration and geo heat exchange heating/cooling systems in homes and buildings total energy use could be reduced dramatically.  And by storing the heating/cooling in buildings and appliances with heat storage media and building mass, buildings go from consuming half of grid power to producing  surplus electricity for the grid, another 20% of what we now use.

Charging up plugin hybrids will take around 20% of present total generating capacity. 

Solar furnace installations for factory process heat and that provide additional cogenerated electricity for the grid could supply another 10%.  That solar furnace manufacturing process heat also would save another 10%.  The cogeneration after the sun goes down also provides backup power.

And farm waste and other waste stream and biomass biogas could supply 10% and serve as emergency backup, distributed around the smart grid in smaller local power plants.  The gas can be stored for emergencies.

Of course these are rough guesses, but informed by the results from actual application of these technologies.  This could all get going as fast as needed to convert our energy and agricultural and manufacturing sectors within the next 20 years.  just in time to have a pretty good chance at turning GHG climate disaster around.  If the rest of the world buys into our energy revolution.

Then there is another huge GHG reduction and sequestration rebalancing effect to consider. 

 By producing biogas energy and digesting farm waste and organic garbage, wood chips from dead wood in fire prone forests, algae and weed overgrowth choking waterways,  prairie grass mown in fire break strips, and so forth; huge amounts of organic fertilizer would be produced.

Eventually enough organic fertilizer to replace fossil fuel based and mined fertilizer, huge sources of GHG emissions in production, application, and run off. 

Furthermore organic fertilizer will restore farm soil as a carbon sink, storing huge amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

I think this whole energy and agriculture GHG policy is possible.  With the proper push by media and government subsidy shifting it could be done in time.