Building the supergrid is the biggest work project of this century. There are lots of jobs that could either be US jobs (if we manufacture the elpipe modules here for the supergrid) or they could go elsewhere:
- aluminum extrusion
- sodium smelting
- elastomer products
- special greases
- copper braid/elastomer junctions
- sensors & control systems
- main drives for elpipe cars
- brakes
If I take my invention to China, many of these jobs will be in China.
It is in the long term interests of US workers to develop the Supergrid here and export it. It is a trillion dollars worth of hardware over the next 50 years.
Had the US DOE encouraged my ARPA-E proposals on elpipes in 2009 or 2010, elpipes would now be well advanced, but they are not. If I get the chance to develop elpipes with Chinese partners, I will do that, because I have not been able to find US support so far. Perhaps some of these components will still be manufactured here, but if I go to China to develop elpipes, the engineering will be done in China.
I am perticipating in the China International Working Group, which is an effort to make an historic change in China's ecological posture, acknowledging the need to do something fast. The Supergrid is the ring that binds all the thousands of small and large energy projects together.
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