Tag Archives: petroleum

Actually, green solar power is winning

An article that dismisses without investigation the fastest
growing industry in the world, solar power, after solar has become

cheaper than any other energy source, is not a serious article.



Richard Smith wrote for Truthout 9 January 2014,

Green Capitalism: The God That Failed.
Sure,
there are lots of good points in there (such as we need a carbon tax,
but it’s not enough), but given that

only 90 companies account for 2/3 of GHG emissions
saying we can’t change that without crashing the world’s economy is
like saying we can’t deal with horse manure in cities in 1900 without
crashing the world’s economy, and

people did say things like that back then.

Most of the world’s oil and gas is used to produce power,
so once we

convert to solar and wind,
we’ll have plenty of remaining petroleum for other uses
such as lubrication.



Saying in 2014 that solar and wind can’t power the world is like
saying in 1994 that Continue reading →

Energy as a National Security Challenge —Col. Dan Nolan @ Solar Summit

In his morning keynote at the sold-out

Southern Solar Summit,
Col. Dan Nolan (U.S. Army ret.) asked the musical question:

“When did our Marines become Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers?”

This was after some Marines asked for solar power so they wouldn’t
have to haul fuel in long convoys, which were among the most dangerous missions.
Most of that fuel was going into very inefficient generators to run
very inefficient air conditioners in tents in the desert.
Dealing with that got the military thinking about energy security:
assured access to mission-critical energy.

Looking up, he asked:



“What is it we as a nation need to understand about our own energy security?”

He identified America’s strategic center of gravity as its economy.
It’s very resilient but has vulnerabilities open to attack.
So how do we secure those vulnerabilities?

The main vulnerabilities are:

Continue reading →