> A large decentralized solar
PV presence will end the energy monopolies' ability to control the energy
markets. It can END our dependence on foreign oil. It can END the wars for oil
and insure another never happens for reasons of "Energy". A Solar Initiative
can give us back our country by re-creating a strong middle class and
manufacturing sector, creating many new entrepreneurs. It can give us back the
ability to control the economy from Main Street again and no longer be fully
controlled by the dangerous and highly questionable speculations of Wall
Street. It can end the tilted playing field we now have towards the giant
trans-national corporate entities whose market shares and positions never
change decade after decade (a highly improbable situation in actual free
markets)... and insure, for the first time in over 100 years, that there is true
competition and real innovation in the energy sector" TRUE free markets, not
the faà §ade of them. REAL change for alternative energy, not continual lies and
meaningless gestures designed only to placate temporarily and provide false
hope during election season.
> This is the badly needed
component to make Electric Vehicles worth the trouble and cost! GOOD CLEAN
ENERGY to re-charge our electric cars and trucks; that does not cause pollution
or dangerous radiation risks. The wish for a clean, safe, and prosperous future
for our children needs no talking points "bullet" for us to remember! But it
does require us to understand the inherent risks of blindly continuing on a
proved-wrong path.
Over a century years ago, there
was another major sea-change for America to deal with. It was the end of the
horse-and-buggy era in transportation, replaced by the "Age of Oil", and the
rise of automobiles. The readers can please consider this: If the Horse and
Buggy Lobby, and the Washington Lobbies for "Oats and Hay" (meaning the analog
of the "Energy" lobby in Congress back in those days), were as incredibly
strong and influential as the Energy Lobbies and their allies are today in the
United States... we would still be driving either horse and buggy's, or cars
designed to only burn "hay and oats" for fuel one hundred years later. Because
these huge corporate profits in the energy sector, larger than any ever before
seen in history, are what's keeping the present paradigm in place in
perpetuity. It is important to note this situation is wholly "Political", and
has nothing to do with "Science" (especially when we know solar photovoltaic
has been a commercially available technology for over 30 years now)... And it no
longer has to do with "consumer desire": Americans want affordable, clean, and
safe energy, this is beyond question. It is just that no one is ever asking
them these questions in nationwide polls because "no one" wants to hear the
answer.
This dangerous current situation
regarding Energy frankly has to do mostly with "Corruption". Corruption and
undue Influence both holds the current paradigm in place, and insures there are
no challenges to it... no viable alternatives like a de-centralized Solar
Initiative being discussed, or ever even mentioned these days in Congress;
while a fission nuclear "renaissance", that only benefits some of the most
wealthy corporations ever seen, like General Electric (whose proved-faulty
reactors were in part responsible for the Fukushima Fission Nuclear Disaster),
and that put us all at risk, as well as frankly absurd industry pork barrel
opportunity for endless corporate welfare such as "Clean Coal" ( a complete
oxymoron and physical impossibility)" are the only "solutions" being
considered.
This corruption and undue
influence has created a bizarro surrealistic landscape and "parallel universe"
now: Where grown men and women openly pretend that the only options that exist
for energy are coal, oil, methane, and fission nuclear... "coincidentally", the
only means with lobbies and big wallets behind them. So we have only the
choices of being irradiated by gamma rays, having our water tables destroyed by
"fracking", or being poisoned by benzene, sulfuric acid compounds, and dozens
of other proved-harmful and dangerous carcinogenic chemicals.
They claim we
have no choice but to endure more Fukushima Fission Nuclear Disasters that
lower our life expectancies from future risk of Cancer and cause birth defects,
more BP Gulf Disasters with huge wildlife kill-offs greatly magnified by the
use of poisonous dispersants that also make many local residents ill, more
Alberta Oil Sand environmental nightmares, more mountaintop removals polluting
hundreds of square miles, more poorly-maintained Alaska Pipelines rusting away
and spilling greater amounts of oil each year, more ancient hardwood forests
being killed-off by acid rain, more of the Amazon Basin's and Niger Delta's
ecological destruction without any laws to protect nature and the people living
there... all so we can continue on as before; pretending there is nothing wrong
and that major and meaningful change in how we produce our energy is not
inevitable and completely unavoidable.
And indeed this must change:
Because this is not just about corporate shenanigans and smirking "winks and
nods" any more" it is about the future of our entire species. Yes: It really
has gotten that bad, the statement is not hyperbole: Just ask a Gulf of Mexico
coastal area resident made ill by dispersant and oil, or a Japanese citizen
forced to leave their radioactive village. Ask an indigenous person in Ecuador
who's tribe's Amazon ancestral home was destroyed by Big Oil corruption and
rampant pollution, a mother in Africa who's children and parents died from
oil's poisons... an environmentalist tagging dolphins and endangered sea turtles
washed up dead on a Florida beach.
Every time we ignore these
events, because they don't touch us personally, we are "rewarded" with another
one closer to home . And the time to act, to change the current energy paradigm,
is now. Before the 40-year old "Vermont Yankee" nuclear power station
(identical in design and operation to the ones melting down in Fukushima), or a
new replacement, is the forth major -- and worst yet-- fission nuclear disaster
taking the lives of a hundred million people. Before another BP Gulf Disaster
kills off already-highly stressed ecosystems for ever... before millions more
people die from benzene poisoning and cancer than do now already in cities all
over the world from poisonous Diesel fumes.
So then, how is a Solar
Initiative to be formulated? What points and actions must it contain to be
successful? First, there must be real incentive for homeowners and small
businesses across the country to install solar PV systems; including serious
tax breaks and no-interest Guaranteed Loans. The money invested here by the
government, can be gotten back fairly quickly in a re-vitalized economy with
lower Unemployment, Food Stamp, and Public Assistance rolls; and the
newly-swelling income and corporate tax revenue from an economy waking up from
economic Depression; with secondary benefits percolating out to many other
sectors such as "Retail", Tourism, and the Housing industry. Second, there must
be incentives and further help for Industry to start-up, tool-up, and open up
our now-deserted factories across the country; manufacturing and bringing in
the machinery needed to produce solar panels efficiently and cheaply in massive
quantities, as well as all the associated electronics and hardware needed for
"Grid Tie" operation and installation. It's a tall order; and a Big Job. But
Americans have done more ambitious tasks, and have done so with great success
time and again. We can do this in less time, and for less cost, than any other
"solution" now being discussed by Congress: Germany's fine example proves it
beyond question.
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