Dr. Mercola March 04 2008 37,258 views
If the U.S. makes a massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants, it is possible that 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy could be solar-powered by 2050.
This would require the creation of a vast region of photovoltaic cells in the Southwest. It could operate at night as well as during the day; excess daytime energy can be used to compress air stored in underground caverns, which would be used as an energy source during nighttime hours.
In order to work, the plan would also need a new direct-current power transmission system to deliver solar electricity across the country, and would require $420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050.
However, despite the fact that many are skeptical about our ability to produce photovoltaic cells and modules that can provide electricity at a low enough cost to be truly competitive, I personally believe we’ll get there. And probably A LOT sooner than projected.
For example, Nanosolar has already been able to reduce the cost of production by 90 percent, slashing the cost from $3 per watt to 30 cents per watt. They won the Popular Science Innovation of 2007 award for their paint-layer-thin solar coating, which is in production as of 2008.
This has the potential to radically change the equation when it comes to choosing your energy sources, just as it did for me. I changed my plans for my new office building to include solar power when I realized we could actually eliminate our former share of pollution, AND lower our utility bills at the same time. It’s truly a win-win situation if there ever was one.
Think about it: there is enough energy in the sunshine that falls on the earth in less than one hour to satisfy the energy needs of the entire human race for ONE YEAR. We simply have to stop this crazy reliance of fossil fuels. Nanosolar seems to be the best bet I have seen to date to start this vital transition.
The fact that most leaders of the world have been unwilling to fully endorse wide use of solar energy is most likely because they can’t make money from it – just as with the current medical paradigm; sick people are sources of profit, healthy people are not. Likewise, energy self-sufficient communities are not something these corporate and political giants are rooting for.
Thinking for yourself, and not falling for political and corporate agenda speeches designed to make you think it can’t be done for another few decades, may be the key to speed up the process.
Warning: Rant Below:
I was born and raised in the "coal fields" of southern West Virginia, though I have lived in and near Charleston all my adult life. Recently I took a trip back "down" to Logan County. I thought I was prepared for the change and devestation I would see. I was not. Whole mountains were gone -- replaced by these savage, jagged bleached-bone rips. Whole communties where I once played and romped are gone -- all the houses destroyed to keep anyone from living down hill from one of those strip mines. Don't tell me coal is cheap! Don't tell me coal is "clean!" How can we, in our arrogance, destroy so much of the ancient Appalachian forest? We have no idea how our blunderings are going to effect the health of the Appalachia to Mississippi watershed including impacts on tree growth, farms, water and climate! Yet on we go. Destroying mountain after mountain, leaving ruin in it's wake, -- all for an hour or 2 of TV and nintendo. And when King Coal is done with it's destruction, the area is smoothed over and some non-native, invasive grasses are planted and -- voila!-- it's been "reclaimed." Don't expect any trees to grow there though -- trees require real top soil and that's all gone. Forgive me for preaching to the choir here, but we in W.Va. are used to being "no counts." As long as the impacts of mountaintop removal (as King Coal so delicately describes it) are kept hidden and confined to "just" Appalachians, then it's "Clean Coal!" If any region in America were subjected to this kind of rape by a company it would be rightly dubbed illegal and unacceptable.
Oh yes, Solar is the way to go. And as far as I'm concerned, it can't arrive fast enough.
hikingchild,
Well said.
Anyone who would like to learn more about the issues that hikingchild raises - plus read one of the best novels I have ever encountered - please read
Ann Pancake's "Strange As This Weather Has Been."
I came across this book by chance at the library about six months ago, and I still can't quit thinking about it. It moved me on so many levels. Ann Pancake is an American Master...
Rob
I am in complete agreement with your sentiments hikingchild. But do you think those HORRIBLY POWER AND MONEY GREEDY HUMANOIDS (very rich guys) are likely to allow FREE ENERGY to the rest of us and STOP ALL THEIR WARS!??
Solar and wind power, etc. would be fantastic for all of us. Are there no real, warm, genuine, caring, responsible HUMAN beings left to get this IMPORTANT SHOW on the road ???? YOU GOOD GUYS, COME FORWARD AND BE COUNTED, PLEASE!!!!
Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House.
Ronnie Reagan had them removed and put in storage.
Unity College in Maine got wind of this some years later, wrote a letter to the right person, and got the panels as a gift. They are now working on the roof of the college's cafeteria building.
I feel we are Miles ahead by putting the Nanosolar panels on our homes. It is stupid to place mega energy farms in the desert. The transmission losses alone kill the gain made by the panels. You can compress air and power your own home at night, as well heat water while compressing air as a by product.
Terrorists and Nation States would love us to make another Grid system. The safer way is to decentralize and save energy and money at the same time.
Besides, Once You pay off the system in 5 yrs. You have energy at home that is paid for and You don't have to work as hard and pay income taxes on earnings to power Your home. That makes retirement easier.
The Aircar comes into play once you have compressed air at home.
I worry that more and more legislation like the above will be passed. No matter what the politicians say, bottom line, no one in power wants to see people (or in their view, sheeople) living independently because they lose control of them.
As Russ and others have stated, the technology has been there for very long, at least since the '70's and they fail to fund it even though energy has been a concern of every administration - ultimately, they bow to the oil god they know best and who pays them, that's how this country has worked all along. See the film, "Who Killed the Electric Car" and see the lengths they go to prevent even the thought of clean energy in the public mind.
There was a guy in a nearby county who had a few acres and put up a wind turbine, the zoning board denied him a permit but never gave a coherent reason why. What are you going to do in such a case?
Agree. But, that's not on the Republican agenda and remember, we have President Bush and V.P. Cheney who came from the oil industry. The GOP, more than the Democrats, received more money from big oil, the coal and nuclear industries. On the other hand, the Democrats, as a whole, received more for clean fuels.
There are not enough votes in Congress for clean fuels because of party and industry affiliates.
In Greece, solar and wind power dominates. The country and islands are far cleaner than anywhere in the USA. I saw no hardship of the people due to the lack of toxic soil and water from the oil and gas industries, unlike what we have in the USA.
What about the billions they've thrown away on this immoral, unnecessary war?
So how is it that land in Nevada can not be spared to host fields of solar panals, but hundreds of thousands of acres in Appalachia can be sacrificed for coal extraction? Yes, we're told the plan is to "reclaim" the land. Reclaim it to what? King Coal points to a golf course here, a shopping center there -- but in reality the vast, V A S T majority of these sites are left fallow and poisoned. Selenium and arsenic leaching into streams, the so-called "replaced" headwaters standing alone under the tree-less, canopy-less sky belching cloudburst runoff to create devestating floods downstream (which are then called "Acts of God,") No, the real issue is: REAL people live in the southwest -- people with money and vacation homes and all. But "Just" Hillbillies live in Appalachia. And those hillbillies should move. Yeah! They should move. Thad would solve all their problems. Just move! Forgive me from being bitter, but so many people don't seem to realize that this devestation is not academic to us who live here. People become upset about panals of solar fields that may someday be built in the deserts of the souhwest -- few people outside this region become upset abut what is happening to the Appalachian mountains TODAY!. Go to google earth and google a satellite map of "Blair, WV." Then move the cursor up, down, right, left to see just how extensive this rape is!
Nebraskamom - just look at what's happening to the Missouri River - they dammed it up, flooded farms etc., and now the corps of engineers is draining the heck out of it for barge traffic downstream.
My beliefs are whenever you move a large body of water, you also move the weather patterns