1AC

Inherency
Current mainstream America is unaware of recent breakthroughs in piezoelectric technology.
Diamond 09 (Kim Diamond, Vice Chair of the Carbon and Energy Trading and Finance Committee of the American Bar Association's
Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources,http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/09/04/breakthroughs-piezoelectric-power-raisingpublic-awareness-step-right-direction-us-sustainable-development)

Efforts are afoot internationally to incorporate piezoelectricity into the clean energy mainstream. While
state-of-the art uses of this electricity-generating technology have debuted in countries such as England, the Netherlands, Japan, and Israel, the

U.S. is currently running at the back of the pack of global leaders in this space. News about scientific breakthroughs enabling piezoelectric devices to be incorporated as sustainable building materials has not yet percolated to Americans' mainstream awareness level. This needs to change. Wide scale employment of piezoelectric power as an energy source is no longer merely a conceptual notion fit to appear in science fiction novels. Revolutionary developments in piezoelectric technology now permit the kinetic energy generated from people walking and dancing, as well as from moving vehicles, to be converted into clean power. Innovative devices employing
piezoelectricity offer vast public benefits and potential business opportunities in both the long and short terms. Increased piezoelectricity usage could be a trend that plays a significant role in shaping tomorrow's world in the alternative energy sector as well as in financial markets. Consequently, new

scientific and technological advances in piezoelectric inventions merit endorsement and should be raised to the forefront of U.S. domestic public consciousness and discourse.

And we must invest in transportation infrastructure now. Deteriorating transportation infrastructure could cost America $3.1 Trillion.
Sledge 11 (Matt Sledge, 09/26/11 06:12 AM ET, Huffington Post, Deteriorating Transportation Infrastructure Could Cost America $3.1
Trillion,)

report issued Wednesday by the American Society for Civil Engineers, which tallies up the cost of our decaying surface transportation infrastructure, from potholes to rusting bridges to buses that never come. The engineers found that overall, the cost of failing to invest more in the nation's roads and bridges would total $3.1 trillion in lost GDP growth by 2020. For workers, the toll of investing only at current levels would be equally daunting: 877,000 jobs would also be lost. Already, the report found, deficient and deteriorating surface transportation cost us $130 billion in 2010. By and large those costs would not come from the more dramatic failings of America's transportation system -New tires add up. That's the finding of a like the collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minnesota -- but more mundane or even invisible problems. The minivan that hits a pothole chips away at a family's income. The clogged highway that drains away an extra half hour of a trucker's day also drives up the cost of shipping for businesses. Congestion, the report found, is of particular cause for concern. Already, 40 percent of urban interstates have capacity deficiencies. Currently, that costs us $27 billion a year in lost time and other inefficiencies wasted on the roads. By 2020, that number could grow tenfold reaching $276 billion a year. The civil engineers are, by their own admission, a biased party -- they stand to gain the most from renewed investment in infrastructure -- but they paint a picture of an infrastructure shortfall that would have ripple effects far and wide through society. Companies, the report estimates, would underperform by $240 billion over the next ten years without additional investment. Exporters, which would have trouble moving goods to market, would send $28 billion in trade less abroad. The cost to families' household budgets, the report suggests, would by $1,060 a year. Underscoring the wider appeal of ASCE's argument, the report received the backing of both labor and business leaders. "Todays

report from the American Society of Civil Engineers further reinforces that the U.S. is missing a huge opportunity to ignite economic growth, improve our global competitiveness, and create jobs," Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a release. Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO president, said in a release that "with a modest increase in investment, we can rebuild a strong economy where business can thrive and workers can afford a place to live, raise a family, take an occasional vacation, pay for their childrens education and have a dignified retirement." The ASCE claims the answer to the transportation problem is simple: Invest more, and quickly.

Plan:
The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment in piezoelectric roads in the United States.

Advantage 1: The Grid

Piezoelectric highways could be a source of green energy and feed back into the grid.
Shockley 11 (June 24, 2011 By Jennifer Shockley, GreenBuildingElements, Piezoelectric Elements Can Turn Highways into Green
Zones,http://greenbuildingelements.com/2011/06/24/piezoelectricity-elements/) Astonishing new advances in clean energy production are happening worldwide with the experimentation and understanding of piezoelectric technology. Piezoelectricity

is the energy caused by the weight, motion, vibration, and temperature changes that occur between two objects as they pass. It is a natural occurring energy that an object releases as a force or friction is applied to its surface; such as vehicles and roadways, bicycles and bike paths, or pedestrians and sidewalks. This friction creates a voltage that can be transformed into re-usable energy. Piezoelectricity is known as vibration
energy and occurs in waves and can be measured comparatively to how they measure the energy produced in ocean waves or moving water, known as hydroelectricity. Piezoelectric

crystals can be attached to any surface. These are pressure sensitive materials that when squeezed release an energy charge that can be harvested either to use immediately or back into the grid for future use. Gizmag wrote, This means that parasitic energy of busy roads, railroads and runways near population centers can be converted into electrical energy that can run public lighting, or be fed back into the grid.

Current electrical grid technology is bad and we need better utilities now.
Denholm et al 10 (NREL : National Renewable Energy Laboratory, US Department of Energy, Technical Report NREL/TP-6A2-47187,
January 2010 ,The Role of Energy Storage with Renewable Electricity Generation, Paul Denholm, Erik Ela, Brendan Kirby, and Michael Milligan http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/47187.pdf)

The operation of electric power systems involves a complex process of forecasting the demand for electricity, and scheduling and operating a large number of power plants to meet that varying demand. The instantaneous supply of electricity must always meet the constantly changing demand,
as indicated in Figure 2.1. It shows the electricity demand patterns for three weeks for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid during 2005.factors such as the need for heating, cooling, lighting, etc. While the demand patterns in Figure 2.1 are for a specific region of the United States, many of the general trends shown in the demand patterns are common throughout the country. To

meet this demand, utilities build and operate avariety of power plant types. Baseload plants are used to meet the large constant demand for electricity. In the United States, these are often nuclear and coal-fired plants, and utilities try to run these plants at full output as much as possible. While these plants (especially coal) can vary output, their high capital costs, and low variable costs (largely fuel), encourage continuous operation. Furthermore, technical constraints (especially in nuclear plants) restrict rapid change in output needed to follow load. Variation in load is typically met with load-following or cycling plants. These units are typically hydroelectric generators or plants
fueled with natural gas or oil. These load-following units are further categorized as intermediate load plants, which are used to meet most of the day-to-day variable demand; and peaking units, which meet the peak demand and often run less than a few hundred hours per year.

Without upgrades in utilities, line losses are inevitable.

These line losses lead to inefficiencies, loss of money, and CO2 Emissions.
John 12 (JEFF ST. JOHN: JUNE 20, 2012, 1.2 Trillion Metric Tons of CO2 in Line Losses the environmental case for a more efficient grid,
greentechmedia, http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/1.2-Trillion-Metric-Tons-of-CO2-in-Line-Losses/# )

Whats the cost of power grid line losses -- and whats to be done about them? Utilities have long accepted that the laws of physics dictate a certain amount of power lost as heat as its transmitted from generator to end-user. California lost about 6.8 percent of its power to line losses in 2008, at a value of about $2.4 billion in electricity. Losses of 7 percent
or so are the norm today in the United States, a rule that holds across Europe as well. Japan has gotten line losses down to 5.1 percent through a $100 billion transmission buildout in the 1990s, but its an exception. Utilities in

developing nations can see losses in the double-digit percentage range. Thats a lot of power lost, and it has a corresponding value in carbon. To be precise, the 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours lost out of 20 trillion used around the world each year represent about 1.2

trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Cutting it by a third would add up to 53 gigawatts of power plants that
wouldnt need to be built, or 290 million metric tons of CO2 not put into the atmosphere, according to CTC Global.

The current electrical grid relies on coal, and reliance of fossil fuels will cause A LOT of problems. including warming.
Santoianni 12 (May 17, 2012, Dawn Santoianni, Scientific America, The Backcone of the Electric System: A Legacy of Coal and the
Challenge of Renewables, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/05/17/the-backbone-of-the-electric-system-a-legacy-of-coaland-the-challenge-of-renewables/) Energy policy and clean energy may be political hot buttons this year, but the technological realities and challenges to achieving energy and

There is strong public sentiment that the U.S. should decrease our reliance on fossil fuels because of concerns about pollution, global warming, ecosystem damage, and energy security. Although a domestically abundant energy source, coal power is imputed as being a major contributor to smog, acid rain, and global warming. High-profile accidents associated with coal mining and coal ash management have further damaged coals reputation. Grass-roots campaigns to replace coal as a major source of electricity claim that wind, solar, and geothermal power could replace retired coal capacity. In 2011, 42% of the electricity
environmental goals are seldom discussed. generated in the U.S. was from coal, according to the Energy Information Administration. Although coal generation for 2012 is projected to fall 15 percent, coal is still expected to represent a significant percent of the nations generating capacity through 2035. Reducing reliance on coal faces challenges beyond policy and market economics. What are the technical constraints of the U.S. electric generating system, what role does coal power play, and how can we further incorporate renewable energy sources? To understand the technological challenges, it is helpful to understand the roots of U.S. electrification how our electrical system evolved, and the legacy of coal power within that system. Modern coalfired power generation is a vestige of Thomas Edisons 1882 Pearl Street Station, which was the first coal power station to provide electricity to residents of New York City. With the introduction of alternating current (AC) by Westinghouse Electric, by the early 1900s power could be successfully transmitted over long distances, allowing centralized stations to deliver power to population centers connected by high voltage transmission lines. Although turn-of-the-century electric power came from numerous smaller generators, improvements to steam power turbine technology coupled with economies-of-scale further encouraged the consolidation of electric power. Transmission technology improved as well during the early part of the 20th century. Increased voltage capacity enabled power to be more efficiently carried for longer distances. Utility companies were able to interconnect multiple plants, allowing the most efficient plants to deliver power to a wide area, provide backup power, and further reduce electricity costs. The use of coal for electric generation expanded rapidly to support soaring electricity demand during World War II, and the transmission grid was built to take advantage of centralized power generation. The legacy of that growth and consolidation is that large coal

power plants still dominate the U.S. electric system, and the infrastructure for carrying high-voltage power (see Figure 1) from smaller, distributed sources is lacking.
The electric system necessitates a real-time balancing of demand with generation. Appliances, air conditioning, and the power to feed our increasingly wireless lives require electric generation be delivered to meet that demand. Failing to meet electric demand results in blackouts with severe economic consequences think Northeast Blackout of 2003. The electric generated by all sources coal, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, natural gas, etc. must be delivered by the wires, buses, transformers, substations, and ancillary equipment that comprise the transmission grid. These components have physical constraints, including thermal limits (related to sag of the transmission wire) and voltage stability (related to the ability to prevent sudden voltage dips that can lead to failures). Sometimes a specific power plant is needed to maintain electric reliability, as was the case for five of First Energys coal plants that were scheduled to retire but arerequired to continue operating for voltage support. The electric system relies on redundancies including operating reserve (excess capacity) to ensure reliability. Baseload generation currently provides the backbone for the electric grid. Baseload is the minimum level of electric demand over 24 hours, such as during late evening or early morning and is served by plants that provide steady and low-cost power with few unscheduled outages. Nuclear and coal have predominately served as baseload plants because they operate most efficiently at full, steady output and are slow to ramp up or down. Geothermal and hydropower have also been used in certain areas as baseload power. Hydropower with pumped storage is a flexible energy source able to serve sudden spikes in demand, such as during hot summer days (peak demand). Natural gas turbines, which can quickly ramp up or down to follow electric load, have been a preferred source of peaking power. Load-following or intermediate demand plants provide power in between off-peak and peak hours, which is when solar and wind power have had the most use. Intermittent or diurnal sources such as wind and solar have been widely considered unsuitable for baseload generation because of their variability. In other words, you cant count on them to meet demand 247. Energy storage may help bridge the gap for intermittent generating sources. Success with baseload solar power is promising, while other energy storage technologies are still under development. So why cant we just use wind and solar when available, supplement with current energy storage capabilities, and use quick-start resources such as natural gas turbines as needed? The problem lies with transmission constraints. While some studies have shown that load shifting using energy storage could help eliminate minimum generation constraints, these technologies have not reached wide-scale deployment and transmission infrastructure is lacking to fully support distributed renewable generation. Regional differences in available electric generating sources compound the problem. While some states such as California generate only a small percentage of power from coal, in other states including Kentucky and Indiana, over

85

percent of electricity generation is from coal.

Coal Plants are bad and cause global warming and pollution 7 Reasons.
DSB 9 (DeSmogBlog, Excepted from the Union of Concerned Scientist Clean Energy report, 10 Harsh Realities of the US Coal Industry,
10 Harsh Realities of the US Coal Industry

Excerpted from the Union of Concerned Scientist Clean Energy report

A typical-sized 500 megawatt coal-fired electricity plant in the United States puts out each year: 1. 3.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas, and is the leading cause of global warming. There are no regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. 2. 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide (SOx) is the main cause of acid rain, which damages forests, lakes and buildings. 3. 10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide. Nitrogen oxide (NOx) is a major cause of smog, and also a cause of acid rain. 4. 500 tons of small particles. Small particulates are a health hazard, causing lung damage. 5. 220 tons of hydrocarbons. Fossil fuels are made of hydrocarbons; when they don't burn completely, they are released into the air. They are a cause of smog. 6. 720 tons of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a poisonous gas and contributor to global warming. 7. 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber. A scrubber uses powdered limestone and water to remove pollution from the plant's exhaust. Instead of going into the air, the pollution goes into a landfill or into products like concrete and drywall. This ash and sludge consists of coal ash, limestone, and many pollutants, such as toxic metals like lead and mercury.

Scenario 1 is Pollution
Independent of the warming debate, air pollution from burning coal distorts weather patterns, killing billions.
BBC Learning 5 (Global dimming transcript http://www.bbcactive.com/AsiaPacific/MediaSupportFiles/80.pdf) One degree in just three days no one had ever seen such a big climatic change happen so fast. This was a new kind of climate change. Scientists call it Global Dimming- directly influenced by pollution from burning coal. Rotstayn has found a direct link between Global Dimming and the Sahel drought. If his model is correct, what came out of
our exhaust pipes and power stations contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa, and afflicted 50 million more. But this could be just of taste of what Global Dimming has in store. The another part of the world. Asia,

Sahel is just one example of the monsoon system. Let me take you to where the same monsoon brings rainfall to three point six billion people, roughly half the world's population. My main concern is this air pollution and the Global Dimming will also have a detrimental impact on this Asian monsoon. We are not talking about few millions of people we are talking about few billions of people.

Coal plants are built near African American Families which causes increased asthma rates among African American Children reducing air pollution is a moral obligation for social justice.
Browning 12 (Dominique Browning, March 29, 2012, TIME Ideas, The Racial Politics of Asthma, http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/29/theracial-politics-of-asthma/) One likely reason is that 68%

of African-Americans (compared to 56% of whites) live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plantthe distance within which the maximum ill effects of the emissions from smokestacks occur. Just as medical researchers once uncovered the link between cigarettes and lung cancer, researchers are now making the explicit connection between air pollution and asthma. Kari Nadeau, a physician at Stanford University School of Medicine physician, has been following the evidence on the asthma trail to understand the cause of the illness. Nadeau
and her team investigated the effects of air pollution on children in Fresnoone of the top ten most polluted cities in the country and reported the findings in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Our research showed that the effects of air pollution in Fresno are associated with genetic changes in the immune cells of children, Nadeau told me. In other words, the

simple act of inhaling

polluted air affects the immune systems ability to do its job. The increasing numbers and severity of asthma are directly related to these genetic changes. These genetic changes are permanent. Reducing air pollution is a social justice issue of profound significance. But the National Black Chamber of Commerce has been playing politics with childrens health. It
has received $525,000 from ExxonMobilno champion of reducing fossil fuel pollutionsince 1998. This is something that all parentsblack or whiteshould be furious about.

Scenario 2 is Blackouts
Blackouts expected to increase in frequency and severity.
CRO Forum 12 (http://www.agcs.allianz.com/assets/PDFs/Special%20and%20stand-alone%20articles/Power_Blackout_Risks.pdf) Power
Blackout risks, pg 25, November 2012

The power blackout risk is generally underestimated. Blackouts during the last ten years in Europe and Northern America have demonstrated an increasing likelihood of supra-regional and long-lasting blackouts including high economic losses. Due to the increasing interconnectedness in combination with rather old infrastructure we expect this risk to increase in both frequency and severity.

Blackouts cost the economy 30 Billion Dollars PER DAY. Just a few days of outage brings economic growth down to ZERO. Rahmstorf 13 (Stefan, Professor at the Postdam Institute for Climate Research, "Anthropogenic Climate Change: Revisiting the Facts,"
http://www.pik potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/Rahmstorf_Zedillo_2013.pdf) This worsened the already-anemic state of a U.S. economy that had been hammered by a massive stock-market meltdown and a series of confidence sapping corporate scandals. It hurt Canada, too, weakening our biggest market. So now, just when

there are signs of healthy growth in both countries, is the last time you'd want to see a large part of the continent's electric-power network collapse. We can be grateful that the immediate impacts look modest. David Rosenberg, chief North American economist with Merrill Lynch, estimates that the U.S. impact could amount to as much as $30 billion for each day of interrupted activity. That's roughly one percentage point of quarterly economic growth, which means that just a few days could theoretically take economic growth in the third quarter right down to zero.

And, US key to global economy and decline leads to global nuclear war. Friedberg and Schoenfeld 8 (Aaron, Prof. Politics And IR @ Princetons Woodrow Wilson School and Visiting Scholar @
Witherspoon Institute, and Gabriel, Senior Editor of Commentary and Wall Street Journal, The Dangers of a Diminished America, 10-28, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html) Then there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial architecture. For decades now, Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of that system. The

worldwide use of the dollar, and the stability of our economy, among other things, made it easier for us to run huge budget deficits, as we counted on foreigners to pick up the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. Will this be possible in the future? Meanwhile, traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying. The threat from al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are continuing on their bellicose paths, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly down the road to chaos. Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give cause for concern. If America now tries to pull back from the world stage, it will leave a dangerous power vacuum. The stabilizing effects of our
presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In such a scenario there

are shades of the 1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum
vulnerability. The aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic competitors even harder than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the

Russian stock market has demonstrated the fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China is perhaps even more fragile, its economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets. Both will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country where political legitimacy rests on progress
in the long march to prosperity. None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these countries seek to divert attention from internal travails with external adventures.

And, no impact defensestatistics go aff Royal 10 (Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, Economic Integration, Economic
Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215) Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defense behavior of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that

rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even
a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behavior of states. He argues that interdependent

states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong
correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic

conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favor. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p.
89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. Diversionary theory" suggests that,

when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999),
and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that

periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of
economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.

Renewable Energy can solve blackouts consistency proves- India.

West 12 (Can Renewables Save Indias Failing Grid?, James West, Thu. Aug. 2 2012,
MotherJones,http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/08/record-breaking-india-blackout-prompts-alt-energy-debate) Forty per cent of India's population is not connected to the grid. Bhusan argues

the blackout provides a symbolic moment to force a debate about renewables. "Either we provide that 40 percent through coal, or we provide that 40 percent through renewable energy," he said. Currently, according to the Centre for Science and Environment, 80 percent of India's power comes from thermal power plants (coal, lignite and gas). Another 3 percent is from nuclear power plants, and hydropower plants produces about 12-13 percent; just 2-3 percent is renewable, mainly wind and solar. While the failings in this

case appear to be with government oversight of the complicated electrical system, renewable

sources help prop up an ailing,

fractured system, argues Bhusan.

Advantage 2: EV Market
Lack of charging outlets is the major barrier for EV market penetration - only 3,300 exist and they are unevenly distributed.
Kemp 12 Senior Market Analyst and writer for Reuters specializing in commodities and energy (John, Column- Will US Federal Fleet Help
Alternative Fuel Switch?, Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/25/column-kemp-cars-idUSL5E8GP8YG20120525)

Federal law defines alternative fuel vehicles broadly to include both those running on alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), hydrogen and high blend ethanol (E85) as well as certain qualifying hybrid electric vehicles run on a combination of regular petroleum and electricity (42 USC 13211). In 2010, there were nearly 1 million vehicles running on alternative fuels in use across the United States, according to the Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center, up from less than 400,000 a decade earlier. In addition, more than 2 million hybrid electric vehicles had been sold over the same period. Alternative fuelled vehicles are still a tiny minority of vehicles on U.S. roads, but the number is increasingly rapidly. The problem is that few are actually filling up with alternatives to gasoline owing to the lack of outlets actually selling alternative fuels such as E85 or LNG. There were just 10,000 fuelling stations dispensing alternative fuels in 2011 (up from less than 7,000 in 2010). Of those, a little over 3,300 were supplying electricity (six times as many as in 2010 making this the fastest
growing segment of the alternative fuel infrastructure). But less than 1,000 dispensed compressed natural gas, and just 45 dispensed LNG. Even E85 was available from fewer than 2,500 outlets. In contrast, there are almost 160,000 retail gasoline stations across the country, and many

Availability problems are compounded by the uneven distribution of alternative fuelling stations. There are lots in California, the nation's biggest vehicle market, and another concentration in the ethanol-producing states of the Midwest such as Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota, but not many in the rest of the country. Drivers in Ohio have access to just 74 dispensing E85, nine providing CNG, and none selling LNG, according to the Energy Department. The result is that even when cars are capable of running on alternative fuels, many are actually filling up with regular gasoline and diesel, defeating the object of having them in the first place.
more private refuelling facilities owned by large fleet operators such as UPS, transit systems, and the federal government.

Electrical Vehicles NOT PROMINENT NOW

Bergin 12 Tom Bergin, Oil Industry: Electric Cars Are No Threat http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/oil-industryelectriccars_n_1246432.html In its Energy Outlook for 2030, released earlier this month, BP

predicted that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, will make up only 4 percent of the global fleet of 1.6 billion commercial and passenger vehicles in 2030. "Oil will remain the dominant
transport fuel and we expect 87 percent of transport fuel in 2030 will still be petroleum based," BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said as he unveiled the BP statistics on January 18. The balance is seen coming from biofuels, natural gas and electricity. Plug-in hybrids can be powered from the mains and only rely on their small gasoline engines when the battery dies. Standard hybrids are principally driven by an internal combustion engine whose efficiency is boosted by the recycling of energy generated from braking. Exxon

Mobil, the biggest oil and gas company in the world, says the continued high cost of electric vehicles compared to petroleum cars, means take-up won't even increase much during the 2030s. In its 2040 Energy Outlook, released in December, the Texas-based company said electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and vehicles that run on natural gas would make up only 5 percent of the fleet by 2040.Peter Voser, Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell, the industry number two, sees a rosier future for electric vehicles. He predicts they will account for up to 40 percent of the worldwide car fleet, although only by 2050.

Piezo roads can charge electric cars

Maurice 10 Pico Maurice, Under Highway Piezoelectric Generators Could Provide Power to Propel Electric Cars
<http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/09/piezoelectric-generators-electric-cars/> The scientific term for generating electricity in this manner is piezoelectricity, which is defined as the charge which accumulates in certain solid materials, notably crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA and various proteins in response to applied mechanical strain, i.e., vibrations caused by cars traveling on busy highways.

In short, piezoelectricity means electricity resulting

from pressure. How piezoelectricity creates an electric charge through vibrations of various materials is not a new discovery, and has been known to the scientific world since the 19th Century. Innowattech wants to perfect their
generators so that they will pick up energy vibrations of both road vehicles and trains, where the generators will be placed under railroad tracks in order to harvest the intense vibrations caused by trains as they pass over rails to which the generators have been attached. Professor Haim Abramovich of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the Technion believes that a

stretch of road less than a mile long, four lanes wide, and trafficked by about 1,000 vehicles per hour can create about 0.4 Megawatts of power, enough to power 600 homes. If electric power can be generated from either roadways or railroad tracks and then fed into power grids, why not a direct feed of generated electricity into the batteries of electric cars as they pass
over these generators?

Scenario 1 is Warming
EVs result in significant emission reduction even on the current power grid multiple studies prove.
Kaplan et al., 10 *affiliated with Frontier Group, a think tank that issues issue experts, writers and analysts to produce ideas and
research to promote a cleaner environment and a fairer and more democratic society, Brad Heavner, B.A. from the University of Michigan, Senior Policy Advisor for Environment America and State Director of Environment Maryland, AND *Rob Sargent, graduate of the University of Vermont, Energy Program Director for Environment America and oversees policy and strategy development for energy and global warming campaigns throughout the U.S., more than two decades of experience leading a wide range of environmental and public interest campaigns (Siena, Charging Ahead: Curbing Oil Consumption with Plug-in Cars, Environment Maryland Research & Policy Center, June 2010,http://www.environmentmaryland.org/sites/environment/files/reports/Charging-Ahead.pdf) Many studies have compared global warming pollution from plug-ins versus that from conventional cars. There is a wide range of results, since there are a number of factors that differ from study to studyfor example, the gas mileage of the conventional cars plug-ins are being compared against, and the amount of electricity the plug-in cars are assumed to use. However,

over 40 recent studies have shown that plug-in cars produce less carbon dioxide than traditional gasoline-powered cars. An electric car powered by electricity from todays electric grid will have lower global warming emissions than a conventional car. One study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) found that a car fueled by electricity from unused capacity in our current electric system would emit 27 percent less global warming pollution than a car fueled by gasoline. The environmental benefits of plug-ins depend on the source of electricity used to power them. Because some parts of the country are heavily reliant on coalwhich produces large amounts of global warming pollutionand others use cleaner sources of energy, the benefits of plug-ins vary from state to state and region to region. Even with this variation, the PNNL study found that global warming emissions per mile driven by an electric motor would be lower in every area of the country except for the Northern Plains states, where emissions would stay the same. In other words, cars driving on electric power deliver roughly the same level of global warming emission reductions as todays conventional hybridswith greater reductions in areas of the country with a cleaner electric grid and smaller
reductions in areas with a dirtier grid.

Global warming causes extinction.

Molloy 7/6 (Ivan, Associate Diploma of Geology: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Rebuff to Climate Change
Denial,http://www.mysunshinecoast.com.au/articles/article-display/rebuff-to-climate-change-denial,26302, 2012) As a former geologist I have to respond to those who deny human induced Climate Change. Yes its true the worlds climate and geomorphology have been continually changing throughout natural history providing favourable conditions for some forms of life at times, while extinguishing others. In recent geological time, the

planet has provided favourable conditions for the flourishing of human life, which in turn like other forms of life also contributes to climate and geomorpholigical change. However, unlike no other form of life, the impact of modern human civilisation has greatly distorted and added to global climate change, and impacting heavily on flora and fauna. Human kind through massive over population and industrialisation is now like a cancer on the planet exterminating hundreds of other life species annually, and now it threatens its own survival with massive pollution. The Global Climate has always changed but not at such a massive rate due to human activity which in turn now threatens our survival. But other forms of life, such as cockroaches will continue on.

The United States is the biggest contributor to emissions and has a moral obligation to act against warming.
Claussen 6 (Eileen, Climate Change: The State of The Question and The Search For The Answer, President of the PEW center for climate
change, http://www.pewclimate.org/press_ room/speech_transcripts/stjohns2of2.cfm, 10/5/2006)

warming trend has accelerated in recent years. The ten warmest years recorded have all occurred between 1995 and 2005. 2005 itself was the second hottest year on record, surpassed only by 1998, when El Nio conditions in the Pacific Ocean contributed to above-average temperatures worldwide. And the trend continues in 2006. For the United
And this

States at least, the first six months of this year were the warmest such period on record. No U.S. state was cooler than average for the six-month period; and five states experienced record warmth. Scientists say these increases in global temperatures will continue and accelerate in the years ahead. The projection is that average global temperature will rise by two-and-a-half to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, with the level of warming in the United States projected to be higher than the global average.

Scenario 2 is Oil Wars

Expanding EVs is the single most effective way to reduce oil demand Baker Institute study proves.
Rice 10 Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy (Study: Electric cars hold greater promise for reducing emissions and lowering
US oil imports, 9/27/2010. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/ru-sec092710.php)

Electric cars hold greater promise for reducing emissions and lowering U.S. oil imports than a national renewable portfolio standard, according to research conducted by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. This
assessment is among several contained in a new major policy study the Baker Institute Energy Forum will release at a Sept. 27-28 conference titled "Energy Market Consequences of an Emerging U.S. Carbon Management Policy." The study comprises several academic working papers on a variety of topics, such as carbon pricing, the wind industry, global U.S. carbon and energy strategies, and renewable energy R&D. "As the country moves forward to deliberate on energy and climate policy," the executive summary states, "consideration must be given to what policies would best accomplish the stated goals for U.S. policy a reduction in the need for imported oil and in greenhouse gas emissions." The papers released at the conference seek to "clarify and debunk common myths that currently plague the U.S. energy- and climate-policy debate." For instance, the Baker

Institute analysis found "the single most effective way to reduce U.S. oil demand and foreign imports would be an aggressive campaign to launch electric vehicles into the automotive fleet." In fact, mandating that 30 percent of all vehicles be electric by 2050 would both reduce U.S. oil use by 2.5 million barrels a day beyond the 3 million barrels-per-day savings already expected from new corporate average fuel efficiency standards, and also cut emissions by 7 percent, while the proposed national renewable portfolio standard (RPS) would cut them by only 4 percent over the same time. Moreover, the researchers found that "business-as-usual marketrelated trends might propel the United States toward greater oil and natural gas self-sufficiency over the next 20 years while scenarios specifically focused on strict carbon caps and pricing or a high carbon tax of $60 a tonne or more could
lead to a significant increase in U.S. reliance on oil imports between now and 2025. A carbon tax of $30 a tonne would also increase U.S. dependence on imports of foreign liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2025." The Baker Institute researchers foresee natural gas -- reinforced by recent discoveries of vast reserves of shale gas -- playing "a very important role in the U.S. energy mix for decades to come." Under a businessas-usual approach, the United States won't have to import any LNG for decades. And the growth of natural gas will help the environment by lowering the demand for coal.

Oil wars lead to extinction of all species.

Lendman 07 Stephen Lendman, (Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization) 2007 Resource Wars - Can We Survive
Themhttp://www.rense.com/general76/resrouce.htm

With the world's energy supplies finite, the US heavily dependent on imports, and "peak oil" near or approaching, "security" for America means assuring a sustainable supply of what we can't do without. It includes waging wars to get it, protect it, and defend the maritime trade routes over which it travels. That means energy's partnered with predatory New World Order globalization, militarism, wars, ecological recklessness, and now an extremist US administration willing to risk Armageddon for world dominance. Central to its plan is first controlling essential resources everywhere, at any cost, starting with oil and where most of it is located in the Middle East and Central Asia. The new "Great Game's" begun, but this time the stakes are greater than ever as explained above. The old one lasted nearly 100 years pitting the British empire against Tsarist Russia when the issue wasn't oil. This time, it's the US with help from Israel, Britain, the West, and satellite states like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan challenging Russia and China with today's weapons and technology on both sides making earlier ones look like toys. At stake is more than oil. It's planet earth with survival of all life on it issue number one twice over.

QUICK TIMEFRAME TO OIL IMPACT

Perl, 10 Director of Urban Studies Program at Simon Fraser University (Anthony, Integrating HSR into North Americas Next Mobility
Transition, June 16, 2010, p. 13016, http://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/publications/RCWP_Perl.pdf)

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Solvency
Piezoelectric Roads can power 30,800 homes in a single lane 1 km stretch for a year, and this could all go into the grid.
Singh 11 (Timon Singh, Timon Singh is a graduate of Liverpool University where he received a degree in Social and Economic History. He has
previously worked for BBC Magazines, 02/14/11, Piezoelectric Energy-Generating Roads Proposed for California,http://inhabitat.com/piezoelectric-energy-generating-roads-proposed-for-california/)

Assemblyman Mike Gatto has proposed a new bill that would see the implementation of piezoelectric technology in the Golden States roads using systems that are already in use in Italy and Israel. The technology could produce as much as 44 megawatts of electricity per year from one single-lane, onekilometer stretch of roadway enough to power 30,800 homes for a year. California is renowned for its miles
and miles of highway, but Assemblyman Gatto believes that all that asphalt can be put to good use. He proposes that the state finance systems that would capture energy as automobiles move along a stretch of pavement. This energy could then be directed into the electric grid. By

placing cheap piezoelectric sensors underneath a road, the vibrations produced by vehicles would be converted into electricity, powering simple systems such as signs and lights. A major source of renewable energy is right beneath our feet or, more accurately, our tires. California is the car capitol of the world. It only makes sense to convert to electricity the energy lost as cars travel over our roads, said Assemblyman Gatto. His bill would require
Californians to use existing funds, which are already set aside by AB 118, Chapter 750, Statutes of 2007, to run two pilot projects with the new piezoelectric technology. Gatto proposes that one be held in Northern California while the other is done in Southern California. Caltrans could sell the power to local businesses and use the proceeds for other piezoelectric retrofitting, or simply for much-needed repairs to regular roads, said Gatto. These vote for it!

projects would quite literally pay for themselves, and will be a significant source of green sector, private-sector jobs. Gattos bill, the Roadway / Highway Electrification Act pilot project, is AB 306 be sure to

Technology is already available infrastructure support enables a whole new transportation system in just a few years.
Smith, 10 - FedEx CEO/Member of Electrification Coalition (Frederick, February 23, Hearing Before a Subcommittee on the Committee on
Appropriations, United States Senate, Opportunities and Challenges Presented in Increasing the Number of Electric Vehicles in the Light Duty Automotive Sector,http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111shrg56643/pdf/CHRG-111shrg56643.pdf, p. 22-23) This is not a question of technology. The technology is there. If anyone on this subcommittee has been watching the Olympics, youve seen the commercials for the Nissan Leaf. You know the Chevy Volt is just around the corner. Youre about to hear from business leaders what they can already produce.

But the technology is not enough without the support needed to build infrastructure, short, to create in a few short years an entirely new transportation system. This is not pie-in-the-sky. Its simply a matter of organization, andmore importantlya matter of will and a matter of execution. Here is what I know, as the leader of a company that both depends on and helps to strengthen the mobility upon which our global economy is built: If the Government supports this new path, if it helps to build these concentrations of electrification that are so crucial to jumpstarting a new, national transportation system, then that is a game changer. It is a game changer for businesses like mine, for employees, for consumers, for the economy, and for the country. A new future is ours for the taking, but only if we choose it and support it.
encourage manufacturing and consumer acceptancein

Strong federal government signal is key.

Lindquist & Wendt 11( Kathy Lindquist, WSDOT Research Office, Michel Wendt, WSDOT Library, retrieved from Clean Car Options.com
website, 2011, http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/5559AE0E-8AB5-4E6B-8F8BDEAA7ECE715D/0/SynthesisEVPoliciesFleetandInfrastructureFINALRev112911.pdf) Any regional transportation planning organization containing a county with a population greater than one million must collaborate with state

and local governments to promote EV use, invest in EV infrastructure, and seek federal or private funding for

these efforts. Collaborative planning efforts may include: 1) developing short- and long-term plans outlining how state, regional, and local governments may construct EV charging locations and ensure that the infrastructure can be electrically supported; 2) supporting public education and training programs on EVs; 3) developing an implementation plan for counties with a population greater than 500,000 to have 10% of public and private parking spaces ready for EV charging by December 31, 2018; and 4) developing model ordinances and guidance for local governments for site assessment and installing EV infrastructure.

Piezoelectric good- effective producers of energy and environmentally friendly

Borghino 12 (Dario Borghino, 22 May 2012, GizMag, KAIST develops low-cost, large-area piezoelectric
nanogenerator,http://www.gizmag.com/low-cost-large-area-piezoelectric-nanogenerator/22468/)

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have created a new piezoelectric nanogenerator that promises to overcome the restrictions found in previous attempts to build a simple, low-cost, large
scale self-powered energy system. Piezoelectric materials can convert vibrational and mechanical forces from, for example, wind and waves, into an electric current. This property has been harnessed to create better microphone transducers and, in more recent years, to harvest energy from clothing, shoes, and even traffic. Last

year, a team led by Dr. Zhong Lin Wang announced it had created the world's first piezoelectric nanogenerator and, shortly after, also announced the first self-powered nanodevice complete with a wireless transmitter. Now Wang and his team have announced further progress in creating a low-cost, large-scale nanogenerator which is also simple to manufacture. The team produced a composite by
mixing piezoelectric nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes and reduced graphene oxide in a matrix of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The nanogenerator was then fabricated by process of spin-casting. "The

generator is mainly made of plastics and zinc oxide,

so the materials are environmentally friendly," says Wang. Despite its relative simplicity, the composite generates a much
higher power density than other devices with a similar structure and has an energy conversion efficiency of seven percent. Wang told us that if the nanogenerator were to be embedded in a pair of shoes, an average-build person could generate around 3W just by walking. For reference, that would be roughly enough to power an iPad 2 (if you wanted to power the new iPad, however, you'd have to either pick up your pace or put on a few pounds). Preliminary

durability studies have confirmed that, even after thousands of cycles in which the material was repeatedly bent and released, the nanogenerator consistently produced the same amount of electric current, with no noticeable degradation in performance.

Piezoelectric Crystals have been tested in highways and are feasible.

Tudor Vieru 08 Piezoelectric Crystals Turn Roads into Power Plants http://news.softpedia.com/news/Piezoelectric-Crystals-Turn-Roadsinto-Power-Plants-99776.shtml A new design, devised by Haim Abramovich, a developer at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, may hold the key to harnessing the power of moving vehicles to create electricity, he says. Piezoelectric

crystals could be used to absorb heavy traffic and convert a 1 kilometer stretch of highway into a 400 kilowatt power plant, much like Japan's railway project. Innowattech, Abramovich's Haifa-based spin-off company, already announced its intentions of testing the new system as early as January 2009, on a short stretch of highway, about 100 meters long, in Northern Israel. The researcher says that, if successful, the new concept could be implemented in many highways and freeways, through
basic maintenance work, without the need for further digs in the pavement. Piezoelectric materials, crystals and ceramics, have the ability to generate a small electric potential when they are subjected to mechanical stress, which makes them suitable for a variety of applications, from harnessing sounds to producing electricity. Piezoelectric concepts include the use of these small devices to capture sound waves from cell phones and convert them into current to feed the battery. This would basically create a self-powering device that would never need refueling. Critics to the Israeli system say that inserting this type of materials in the surface of the road would basically increase the traction force cars would have to exert on the road, as the surface of the street would resemble that of a mud-covered area. This would mean that fuel consumption would increase, though even opponents admit that powering roadside structures would be very beneficial to everyone .

Regardless of this project, the future of piezoelectric materials looks bright, with studies focusing on their properties and applications even in nanotechnology. If a compromise between the hardness of the road and the make-up of the small devices is reached, then undoubtedly the system will benefit both drivers and the Israeli national power grid.

Plan is politically popular, increases growth, jobs, and productivity of the economy.
Boushey 11 (Heather Boushey is Senior Economist at American Progress, Center for American Progress, Now Is the Time to Fix Our
Broken Infrastructure, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/aja_infrastructure.html, September 22, 2011, LEQ)

Investing in transportation infrastructure in particular boosts employment. The Federal Highway Administration
periodically estimates the impact of highway spending on direct employment, defined as jobs created by the firms working on a given project; on supporting jobs, including those in firms supplying materials and equipment for projects; and on indirect employment generated when those

In 2007, $1 billion in federal highway expenditures supported about 30,000 jobs10,300 in construction, 4,675 in supporting industries, and 15,094 in induced employment. Investing in infrastructure not only creates jobs; it increases the productivity of businesses small, medium, and large. At the most basic level, infrastructure investments make it possible for firms to rely on wellmaintained roads to move their goods, on an electricity grid that is always on to run their factories, and
in the first two groups make consumer purchases with their paychecks. water mains that provide a steady stream of clean water to supply their restaurants. There is a large body of empirical work that documents this. Although the specific effect differs across studies, European Investment Bank economists Ward Romp and Jakob de Haan conclude that there is now more consensus than in the past that public capital furthers economic growth. Because infrastructure

investments create jobs and boost productivity, these investments have historically had bipartisan support. In early 2011, for example, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue issued a joint statement in favor of greater infrastructure investment in the near-term: With the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO standing together to support job creation, we hope that Democrats and Republicans in Congress will also join together to build Americas infrastructure.