Real Clear Energy Independence

Imagine if every home generated and stored its own electricity. The way I envision it, we would be more self-sufficient, more environmentally friendly, less dependent on foreign oil, and less vulnerable to attack on our power plants.

We can already generate electricity at our home if we want, but most of us do not because we can't store electricity at our home. Currently, we must each sell all of the energy we produce – to the power company, and we must each buy all of the energy we consume – from the power company.

My vision is simple. You could generate electricity in any manner you wanted: wind, solar, diesel, ethanol, etc., and then store that electricity by using it to power a motor that would lift a heavy weight suspended from a cable. Then when you want to use electricity, the weight would be allowed to fall at a rate necessary to generate the desire amount of electricity.

Feasible technological variations are many. For example, one might want to have two or more such systems, not only to store more energy, but to be able to store and generate simultaneously. Another possibility that would increase aesthetics, safety, and security, would be to let each weight (a piston) rise and fall inside an underground vault. Another variation would be to pump water into a typical water tower having a reservoir at the top, in which case, a single tower would suffice as the energy produced would pump water into the top of the reservoir and let water flow out a valve at the bottom to generate electricity by turning a turbine – like at the Hoover Dam.

Individual energy independence is the kind of paradigm breaking innovation that has often empowered the little guy and/or forced governments to retreat and accept greater individual liberty. Examples are the printing press, firearms, interchangeable parts, automobiles, and the Internet.

I have previously explained why the much anticipated and individually liberating innovation of flying cars has been held up by an inefficient and elitist government that fears the people, but unlike flying cars, there is simply no way for politicians to object to individual energy independence. They can only distract us.

Politicians like Obama distract us with alternative paradigm breaking ideas, like his smart grid, which would let the government monitor and control your energy consumption. Competing politicians, like like Sarah Palin, distract us with the traditional alternative that she calls “energy independence”, and she’s just talking about increasing domestic oil production!

I can’t be the first person to have figured out the feasibility of individual energy independence. Cleary, politicians and the media have priorities that conflict with energy independence and the environment.

Now that we know the reality of energy independence, we see yet again that …

Freedom is the Promise of Reality.