Do you turn on the tap expecting clean water? Want to fill your tank at the gas station? Get cash at the ATM? Check your email? Want cold milk with your cookies? Need an X-ray for a broken bone? Fly to an exotic vacation spot? Depend on Homeland Security to keep us safe?
If so, our electricity infrastructure isn’t someone else’s problem: it’s yours.
Electricity is fundamental to our modern way of life…so fundamental that we only notice it when its not there. When the power goes out, what else stops working?
The answer: everything. Water purification systems stop working. Refrigerated food rots. AC, heating, telephones, TV, internet, banks, hospitals, gas stations, elevators, mass transit systems—everything grinds to a halt when the power goes out.
Because our electricity system supports and enables our modern way of life, a lot is at stake when the power goes down and the lights go out. Yet, generating electricity contributes to global warming.
Today, America is at a turning point. Demand for power is increasing. And, as our economy grows, electricity demand also grows. But it’s not just our economy that’s growing. The largest increases in greenhouse gas emissions come from developing countries like India and China. Their economic progress means more electricity generated and more global warming gases pumped into the atmosphere.
As population grows and economies around the world expand and modernize, our electricity consumption will grow exponentially–and so will our greenhouse gas emissions. Something’s got to give.
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