The Wall Street Journal details a rather curious, ancillary green energy plan. And we are forced to ask this: Can Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto be far behind in embracing it?
We’ve long noted the lack of production consistency in wind and solar power. No wind, no power. No sun, no power. Which means those systems must find a way to store already produced power. Which has proved to challenge standard notions of cost-efficiency
But in Europe, researchers are experimenting with gravity – yes, gravity – to generate power during those times when wind and solar aren’t generating.
But the gravity plan involves something akin to a Rube Goldberg machine – cranes that lift and lower 35-ton blocks of compacted soil into the air, stack them in very tall towers, then, in times of need, allowing gravity to lower those blocks, attached to a generator, back to the ground.
Of course, there are a few challenges. One is that it would take 20 of these massive towers to power up to 40 households for 24 hours.
Another is an unstated question that should be obvious: Is it cost-efficient, even as a stop-gap electricity generator?
As we are wont to say when hearing of the latest clean energy scheme to end all clean energy schemes – “There is that.”
Surely, “Peduto Towers” can’t be far behind.
Troubling news out of Washington, D.C., is that the proposed 2021 federal budget contains, at least for now, no federal funding for long overdue construction projects along this nation’s inland waterways.
And worse, as the Post-Gazette reports it, it calls for those who operate on these waterways commercially to pay new annual fees of $180 million.
This certainly is not a case of some “special interest” getting any kind of free ride from taxpayers for the upkeep of this nation’s vitally important locks and dams. After all, waterways users already pay about $120 million a year in fuel taxes that are supposed to go toward such projects.
As observers have routinely noted, the lack of consistency in the feds drawing down from this user-funded kitty continues to cause great consternation among those responsible for transporting an incredible array of commodities year after year after year.
Indeed, tens of millions of dollars have been freed up for critical work on waterways projects in the Greater Pittsburgh region. But much more work remains.
And those taxed to pay for such things should have every expectation that those dollars collected will be disbursed in a timely and regular fashion.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
