Oil Price Tank Threatens Green Energy

One of the biggest factors for many industries and people to go with green energy was the high cost of oil. They went solar, they went with wind power, hydro, bio-fuels, hydrogen fleets, electric cars, and the green energy movement was born again. What happens now to that green energy drive when oil is once more affordable? Should it be abandoned or pursued more feverishly?

In my little corner of the world it was great to see one small Catholic high school put up a wind turbine on its campus from their pristine location on a high hill in our city. Seeing that turbine whip around and feed the school all of its electric energy needs is just amazing to behold. I would love to see the seven hills of Worcester, MA look like the Gray Goose about to take off. That would be a Howard Hughes reference to an aircraft that he proposed and the government prosecuted him over that it could never fly. It did fly and so will the green energy mentality.

America has been burned over the last few years with the speculation on oil and we frankly are late on getting on the green energy bandwagon. We never learned from the oil embargo of the 1970’s but we sure as hell will never forget the oil desecration of our financial system once the oil bubble burst.

Over at the Guardian and from Chris Goodall they have this amazing piece on "The Ten Big Energy Myths". I loved it! This is a must read article and you might find yourself amazed at the myths and what the truth actually is…

Myth 1: solar power is too expensive to be of much use
Myth 2: wind power is too unreliable
Myth 3: marine energy is a dead-end
Myth 4: nuclear power is cheaper than other low-carbon sources of electricity
Myth 5: electric cars are slow and ugly
Myth 6: biofuels are always destructive to the environment
Myth 7: climate change means we need more organic agriculture
Myth 8: zero carbon homes are the best way of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions from buildings
Myth 9: the most efficient power stations are big
Myth 10: all proposed solutions to climate change need to be hi-tech

Guardian.co.uk

I’m hoping that we in America will continue the fight for energy independence. We can not prosper as a people when any foreign entity controls our power needs. If we can not supply our nation with the energy we need to continue the fight that is right for human rights then we are dead in the water. If we as a people espouse to be the conscience of the world then we had better be able to feed the energy needs of that mind set. Otherwise, we need to start kissing the butt’s of some of the same folks that reaped the largest financial gains in history from the American people.

Keep up the fight for clean energy and chuck the bird at the people that told us we can not survive as a nation without the product they have to sell us. Thus dragging us collectively as a people into their political wars that have not made any sense for centuries.

Papamoka

Wind Power White Knight Oil Barron

T. Boone Pickens is running a national television and internet campaign to save this country from the strangle hold of imported oil and I’m backing his plan. I signed up as a member simply because he is right. America is spending $700 Billion dollars a year on imported oil and that money is going out of this country to fund God only knows what. And this oil man for life is putting his money where his heart is and building a coalition of people that can make a difference on our nation’s oil addiction. You can check out his video here. I highly recommend it!

For a life long oil man to see our nation’s dependence on oil as wrong has to tell you that he can speak from experience. When he is personally backing the development of wind power in this nation by building a 4000 MW wind farm in Pampa, Texas then you know he is serious about this subject.

All of my adult life I have been energy conscious and a conservative of the use of any energy source. My wife hated it when I started buying fluorescent bulbs for all the light fixtures in the house in the mid 1990’s. And yes she was an energy conservation terrorist swapping out my energy savers with regular light bulbs whenever and wherever she thought she could get away with it. Eventually, I would find her evil doings and undo them with a replacement bulb. This battle went on for several years until she became tired of the war and surrendered.

When the cost to heat the house by natural gas was getting ridiculous, I installed a wood pellet stove that redeemed my “Cheapo in Chief” status with the fluorescent light bulbs as the house was warmer and cozier. She was happy, I was happier with the cost to heat the home reduced by two thirds! While she and my daughters saw the warmth as nap inducing technology, I saw a renewable energy source and a gas bill at summer prices.

This had me looking at other ways to save energy and that is when I stumbled upon a gas fired tank less hot water heater from Bosch on the internet. Tank less hot water is huge in Europe and is slowly now catching on in the United States. Trust me, six females in one house use a ton of hot water and yours truly was always the one jumping in the shower to find no hot water left. The old forty gallon water heater could never keep up and even when we were away it was running up my gas bill and that didn’t make any sense.

Needless to say I was looking at home sized wind turbines and solar panels for the house. That involved a lot more technical know how and installation than my paycheck could afford. Anything to reduce the energy use we have had was scrutinized and looked at for avenues of savings. We came across information on front loading washers and the high energy efficiency they had and combined that with a matching dryer for our clothes. Water bill went down, electric bill went down.



Check out this site from T. Boone Pickens on actually changing our dependence on oil and let me know what you think. Something has to change and it might as well start with us.

Papamoka

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