State politics slows industry growth

While most of us may not realize it day to day, without electricity, modern life ceases to be. Coal and oil have been the single greatest vehicles to wealth in the history of our species. It is this fact that makes it critical we address the depletion of fossil fuel. All utilities across the country make plans for production and growth several decades into the future and they watch energy prices every minute of everyday. The conversation we have today, directly impacts the next decades of our lives. When a single coal plant costs $2.2billion dollars and a nuclear plant costs 5 times that, we have to get these decisions right.

Every living thing on the surface of the planet gets its energy from the sun. Coal and oil are nothing more than storage units of the sun’s energy. Wind and biomass are also energy created from the sun. Nuclear plants are mimicking the sun’s fusion reaction but we use fission and fuel that is poisonous. To me then it seems abundantly clear that we should explore the mining of the sun’s energy directly. Spectra Labs a division of Boeing makes the most efficient/ most durable solar panels on and off the earth. American engineers can still create great things. USC located in Columbia SC is doing some amazing research into semiconductor materials and photovoltaic’s (solar electric, PV for short)

Since energy is one of the four critical things we need to have modern society, I believe it is the next arms race and the next vehicle of economic growth (actual sustainability) for the US and the world. 60% of the world’s oil is located near India and China. India and China have one third of the planet’s population. China is spending its $2.1 trillion dollars of currency reserves on energy bets globally; China is also outspending us on renewable energy infrastructure. The majority of American’s despite our political arguments and social differences are fat and happy. We need to put aside our differences at the local level and create the support needed to get solar energy on parity to coal, if we don’t someone else will. Food, shelter, communications and energy are the underpinning of our happiness.

So with the eventual rise of China and India (go to Wal-Mart or ask your telephone credit card representative where they got their college degree) we have to ask ourselves now where is our energy going to come from in 20-40yrs from now. Paul Campbell (R) Berkeley recently said “we need a clean energy standard in South Carolina.” We need this new leadership to prevail. It is lack of education and state support for new industries that will cause us to lag behind the rest of the country and the world.

Some people have been quoted saying South Carolina is too humid for solar. This is completely false. South Carolina gets 43% more output than Germany, the world’s leader in solar installs. Solar most certainly does work in South Carolina. We have the 13th best solar irradiance in the nation and we far outstrip Europe in sun mining potential. That is why we must mine the sun. Can solar meet base load demand (energy 24 hrs a day) right now? No, but not utilizing it where we can, (peak shaving, offsetting the most expensive energy at high demand times) is wrong. The internal combustion engine was industrialized in the 1870’s and yet even today only 10% of the used energy moves the vehicle, should we have waited for 20%, or 40%?!

While our house and Senate continue to resist helping entrepreneurs build a new industry in SC, other states like North Carolina and Georgia are creating jobs, gaining investments and creating energy security. Lindsey Graham US senator for South Carolina gets it. His approval of national climate legislation will bring jobs to our state. Not only thru solar and biomass but natural gas drilling off the SC coast and wind turbines and nuclear technology investment will bring billions to SC. Do we want to fight (running up the deficit and losing our most precious resources) over fossil fuel reserves or do we want to build the new energy economy?

So it’s a question of new jobs, new money, and new ideas or no ideas and the blind hope that our economy will create jobs by itself. Tell your state representative that North Carolina has fully supported solar with legislation and they have much lower unemployment due to this investment, we need to match North Carolina incentives. If we invest in new technology and innovation we secure our position as global leader and will prosper as these other economies buy our products and knowledge as they already do in relation to fossil fuels now. Its hard to give up what has been so good to us, fossil fuel powered America’s industrial revolution. We will remain the leaders in petro-chemical production and research for the foreseeable future but if we look back to why America is great its much easier to realize we can and must build a new energy economy on solar power because the sun is so integral to all life and energy is prosperity.

State politics slows industry growth

While most of us may not realize it day to day, without electricity, modern life ceases to be. Coal and oil have been the single greatest vehicles to wealth in the history of our species. It is this fact that makes it critical we address the depletion of fossil fuel. All utilities across the country make plans for production and growth several decades into the future and they watch energy prices every minute of everyday. The conversation we have today, directly impacts the next decades of our lives. When a single coal plant costs $2.2billion dollars and a nuclear plant costs 5 times that, we have to get these decisions right.

Every living thing on the surface of the planet gets its energy from the sun. Coal and oil are nothing more than storage units of the sun’s energy. Wind and biomass are also energy created from the sun. Nuclear plants are mimicking the sun’s fusion reaction but we use fission and fuel that is poisonous. To me then it seems abundantly clear that we should explore the mining of the sun’s energy directly. Spectra Labs a division of Boeing makes the most efficient/ most durable solar panels on and off the earth. American engineers can still create great things. USC located in Columbia SC is doing some amazing research into semiconductor materials and photovoltaic’s (solar electric, PV for short)

Since energy is one of the four critical things we need to have modern society, I believe it is the next arms race and the next vehicle of economic growth (actual sustainability) for the US and the world. 60% of the world’s oil is located near India and China. India and China have one third of the planet’s population. China is spending its $2.1 trillion dollars of currency reserves on energy bets globally; China is also outspending us on renewable energy infrastructure. The majority of American’s despite our political arguments and social differences are fat and happy. We need to put aside our differences at the local level and create the support needed to get solar energy on parity to coal, if we don’t someone else will. Food, shelter, communications and energy are the underpinning of our happiness.

So with the eventual rise of China and India (go to Wal-Mart or ask your telephone credit card representative where they got their college degree) we have to ask ourselves now where is our energy going to come from in 20-40yrs from now. Paul Campbell (R) Berkeley recently said “we need a clean energy standard in South Carolina.” We need this new leadership to prevail. It is lack of education and state support for new industries that will cause us to lag behind the rest of the country and the world.

Some people have been quoted saying South Carolina is too humid for solar. This is completely false. South Carolina gets 43% more output than Germany, the world’s leader in solar installs. Solar most certainly does work in South Carolina. We have the 13th best solar irradiance in the nation and we far outstrip Europe in sun mining potential. That is why we must mine the sun. Can solar meet base load demand (energy 24 hrs a day) right now? No, but not utilizing it where we can, (peak shaving, offsetting the most expensive energy at high demand times) is wrong. The internal combustion engine was industrialized in the 1870’s and yet even today only 10% of the used energy moves the vehicle, should we have waited for 20%, or 40%?!

While our house and Senate continue to resist helping entrepreneurs build a new industry in SC, other states like North Carolina and Georgia are creating jobs, gaining investments and creating energy security. Lindsey Graham US senator for South Carolina gets it. His approval of national climate legislation will bring jobs to our state. Not only thru solar and biomass but natural gas drilling off the SC coast and wind turbines and nuclear technology investment will bring billions to SC. Do we want to fight (running up the deficit and losing our most precious resources) over fossil fuel reserves or do we want to build the new energy economy?

So it’s a question of new jobs, new money, and new ideas or no ideas and the blind hope that our economy will create jobs by itself. Tell your state representative that North Carolina has fully supported solar with legislation and they have much lower unemployment due to this investment, we need to match North Carolina incentives. If we invest in new technology and innovation we secure our position as global leader and will prosper as these other economies buy our products and knowledge as they already do in relation to fossil fuels now. Its hard to give up what has been so good to us, fossil fuel powered America’s industrial revolution. We will remain the leaders in petro-chemical production and research for the foreseeable future but if we look back to why America is great its much easier to realize we can and must build a new energy economy on solar power because the sun is so integral to all life and energy is prosperity.

US, China, win win.

November 18, 2009
The Emerging US-China Strategic Alliance on Clean Energy
by Louis Schwartz and Ryan Hodum, Contributors
Pennsylvania, United States

The bilateral relationship between the United States and China has begun to take on a more pragmatic and secure quality under the Obama Administration, a welcome contrast to the past, when the U.S. was mostly uneasy about the rise of China and China was often uncertain about assuming its emerging role as an economic and political center of gravity.

Though disagreements over the value of the Yuan, trade restrictions and human rights issues will continue to be present in the Sino-U.S. relationship, the exigencies of the worldwide economic downturn and the opportunities for cooperation in the development of a new energy future, are paving the way for a sustainable and productive bilateral relationship.

Renewable energy investments in the U.S. by the Chinese are but one side of the coin; on the other side are the enormous opportunities for American companies to participate as the Chinese spend some $2 trillion over the next 20 years to fundamentally restructure the way they produce and consume energy.

It is in this latter area — cooperation on clean energy development — that the Obama Administration already has laid a foundation that presages unprecedented opportunities for Sino-U.S. cooperation. President Obama’s meetings with the Chinese leadership this week give further impetus to the significant efforts by the two countries to forge a new energy future based on Shuang Ying the Chinese term for “win-win.”

The conumdrum

Oil and coal are amazing. They are the fuels of the modern world. I love the creature comforts we have today. Science and technology have improved life no-end. These are the issues we face. We want everything we have now and more, but the engine of these modern marvels is finite. All of us today should 'leave this mortal coil' before the feasibility of extracting enough fossil fuels becomes impossible.

Our kids won't and if we are not careful we will see the impact of this conumdrum in our lifetimes. When something is in high demand and limited supply we all know what happens, prices go up. When the availability of a commodity becomes so short that price cannot increase its availability and its supply is critical, people will do whatever it takes to get it. I do not want to see policy that leads us to determine if we can 'take' the necessary commodity, regardless of its location. It will not be like today or the last 8yrs it will worse, more protracted, more expense and many, many more lives lost.

This to me is the single most important thing in the world. We must have resources soon to off-set the lack of production from traditional energy sources, fossil fuel. While all the rhetoric about solar right now is correct, it is expensive in relation to coal, it takes an unknown storage source to utilize the energy 24hrs a day, we must invest heavily to remove these issues.

Never in human history have we not been able to overcome a challenge and use our ingenuity to create new and better ways to do things. That time has come, that time is now. It is incredibly exciting to think we are witnessing the birth of a whole new paradigm in energy production.