Renewable Energy Makes Cents

Renewable energy is the way to go for the United States and every other nation on this planet. We as a nation lament about our dependence on oil from the Middle East, and many say we should exploit our own national natural resources; but why should we spend the time and the money ruining our scenic areas, if we are only going to run out anyway? Fossil fuels will eventually give out, only renewable energy sources will continue to sustain us. We as a nation have lead the world for centuries with our inventions and innovations, we need to encourage and fund the brightest minds of our nation to come up with better solutions, rather than going with the tried and true, but old, (and dirty) technologies that will soon be obsolete. We must think in the long term, rather than taking a narrow-minded short-term approach. We will eventually run out of coal, oil, and natural gas. But as long as humans are able to live on this earth, we will have renewable energy sources: solar, wind, and geothermal power. It may take a change in our way of thinking as a nation, and as an individual. We are starting that process with recycling, in our throw-away society. We are now starting to embrace the idea of recycling our garbage, and taking reusable bags with us to the grocery store. I look forward to the day when we think nothing more of plugging in our cars at the end of the day (getting the electricity from the solar panels on the roof), than we do of brushing our teeth before going to bed. I believe we need to work on putting solar cells on the rooftop of every building, and covering every parking lot with carport-like structures and putting solar cells on them. The sun puts out more than enough solar energy every day to power the world, and when it runs out we are doomed anyway, since we cannot sustain ourselves without it.

And we, of course, have the added plus of protecting our scenic areas by starting to use renewable sources of energy. There is no need to risk oil spills, or to strip mine for coal, and in doing so ruin our environment, and the beautiful, irreplaceable, places on earth.

It may seem onerous in the short term to be putting money into researching new technologies, but it will pay off in the end. We have already put too much time, energy, and money into exploring and perfecting the technology for fossil fuels. Thomas Edison said, "I haven't failed; I've found 10,000 ways that don't work." That is the attitude that we need to have, when funding additional research into renewable energy. We shouldn't give up just because we haven't yet found a way to efficiently run our cars on solar power. We need to continue to fund the research. To continue funding toward fossil fuels and their technologies is throwing good money after bad. And we would still have to do it in the end after all, after we run out of fossil fuels anyway.

And it goes without saying that we need to do what we can to conserve energy. Conserving energy reduces our need for more energy. Funding for energy research needs to include reducing our energy consumption, making our houses and appliances more energy efficient.

When we talk about solar power, we should not forget about passive solar. Passive solar does not have any moving parts or mechanisms to break down. Passive solar uses the orientation of a building to the sun (south facing windows in the northern hemisphere) to heat a house; and overhangs of the roof to shade the building and keep it from getting too hot during the hot summer days. We need to amend our building codes to allow architects and home builders to put these guidelines into practice (many cities and subdivisions have rules that the home must parallel the street regardless of the solar orientation). We can reduce how much energy buildings use just by building them according to passive solar principles, since a large share of our energy use is to heat and cool buildings. Sometimes, reducing our energy use does not cost anything at all, just changing the floor plan to use the free energy of the sun! (Now that makes "cents"!)

Another way to build houses and reduce energy consumption, is to use renewable and sustainable building materials, either for the building itself, or for insulation. All avenues need to be considered, including old-time methods of straw bale, adobe, and cob. An added benefit is that many of these ways of building can be done as a volunteer group project, building community as well as a home. And when using volunteers you save the money of paying a contractor to build the house.

Of course, getting our power from renewable sources will not happen overnight. But we must start focusing on and funding renewable energy sources, and eventually getting a larger and larger proportion of power from renewables. But as much as we can, as fast as we can, should be done to make it possible. It is only common sense!

 

Carolyn Huddleston

Media / Interview Requests? Click Here.