I'm Just Sayin'

What's it feel like leaving $40-$50 at the gas station every time you fill er up? It hurts. At least it hurts most of us. And that's a good thing. It may not seem like it, but in the long run, high gas and energy prices are a necessity if we are ever going to be pushed or forced into developing alternate sources of energy. We know what we need to do and we have known what we need to do for a long time, but we have lacked incentive. Now we have incentive. Automobile fuels are only a portion of our energy consumption. We must heat our homes and workplaces and we are paying higher and higher prices for all types of energy.

Our focus has been to find more and more stuff to burn. Oil, natural gas, coal....and now... corn...after it's converted into fuel and other "alternate" fuel sources such as waste cooking oil...we're "burn stuff" crazy.  We have many choices, but most of the clean choices have a higher cost so we ignore them. Now, with the jump in fuel prices, we have a monetary incentive to make changes. We've pretty much dammed up all the available rivers in order to use water flow to turn generators to produce electricity. This has been a major plus in the past as a source of clean electricity, but our needs are outstripping the production capacities of the dammed rivers. And, there is the added cost of distribution...running all those ugly electric cables across the country.

Why don't we just make our own electricity? Each house, each apartment building, each office building, plant, warehouse, store....every structure that uses electricity can be used as a platform for photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells use the largest source of energy available for us to use, the sun of course, and convert that sunlight into electricity....clean electricity. This isn't new. It has been expensive, but expense is relative. As the cost of conventional fuels has gone up, the cost of PV technology has come down. Even if we totally eliminate the environmental impact damage factor, which is argument enough for switching to PV or solar power, the time to make the changes is right now.

The future of oil prices is not certain, but we are certain of very little. Oil prices will continue to go up. Nothing we, as Americans, can do can change that.  All fossil fuel prices will continue to rise. And if we keep burning stuff, we will accelerate the damage we are inflicting on our home planet. Oil consumption in the U.S. has, for now, leveled off, but guess what? Global demand for oil is booming. 104 countries grew more than 5% last year. China  can and will up it's use of oil each year due to it's rapid industrial expansion.

The worst thing we can do is look for more oil. The best thing we can do is stop using oil. The way to get off the oil habit is to use solar energy technology.