[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
One of the reasons I am a fighting liberal is because I am a steward of the earth. It is our duty not to poison this place and leave a sustainable biology for future generations.
I could give a whit about yap or web pages, I want action. Now. There are precise, absurdly easy energy technology steps available today that greatly enhance our biology and security, and if my tone is regrettably pugnacious it’s because I’m losing patience at the horrifying opportunities being lost every second in human progression.
No, I’m not exaggerating. It’s striking how many beneficiaries there are in the new technologies, it’s terrific politics to implement them, yet somehow these tools of immense political and environmental power are just left sitting there, Jesus, we can do so much better than this. All right, Harry Truman, I’ll show our modern political actors what they’re missing out on.
In a too-long sorry-assed story of misunderstanding and crony payoff agricultural policy the US now produces vast amounts of ethanol, which is an ecological disaster, it’s not green in the least. Never mind trying to fix it structurally, the perfect workaround is to have crop production switch to soy or peanuts for bio-diesel.
There’s no costly fight to abandon the policy, farmers raise crops and diesel emissions dramatically improve. Bio-D blends most excellently with petrol diesel, all that is required new fuel filters, don’t even go there, we already did it in California for our special gasoline. It wasn’t pretty but in three weeks the petty task was done.
The fix is already in for another ecological policy mistake, the Altamont wind farm in California. The first image was the first attempt at windmills, which are aesthetic eyesores that kill birds with vicious efficiency. Nearly two years ago Alameda County budgeted $540 million to replace them with these, windmills of breathtaking grace and beauty.
I hopped a fence and stood among them at dusk, awed by their height and grace, the slow speed of the propellers easily seen and avoided by birds. How I wished every American could do it—finally, a blend of technology and earth that is so obviously perfect.
Alameda Country should not have had to come up with that money, windmill replacement and installation should be federal energy policy. Any American would be thrilled with the money spent as soon as they saw the windmills, I swear the experience is that powerful.
Well over a year ago the Department of Energy (cough) announced a thrilling breakthrough in solar research, the efficiency gain from these cells is now at 40.7%
I still feel like doing cartwheels and clambering up to the roof to yell "We made it! We made it!" when I see that number. It has nothing to do with pride in the accomplishment, but that it is now 100% totally demonstrated the species of man never has to burn another hydrocarbon for energy, all we’d ever need was right there in the new solar cell!
This is the complete energy scenario for our future, 100% renewable stored sunlight, 100% clean, gathered and shared from vast fields of solar cells installed on every structure in the country. Not difficult at all, with the technology available now.
I honestly don’t see why it’s wrong for me as a liberal and Democrat to request that these immensely political beneficial technologies and policies be evangelized with the most intense glucose available. Month after month the incredible tools are just left sitting there, so here I will remain, a hopeful soul on a lonely stool at the primary bar, drinking little-ordered dark green koolaid.