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The issue of clean renewable energy as a replacement for our current fossil fuel-based economy has been at the forefront of environmental and economic debates for close to thirty years. Its promise and possibilities have been widely acknowledged; yet due to massive amounts of start-up costs relating to its generation and the previous relatively low price of oil, utilization and innovation within the industry had been slow to develop. However, over the past several years, and particularly during this last year, due to the growing strong concern and urgency stemming from the real threat of global warming, the increasing international usage of coal in emerging economies, the increasing price of oil, and the planned spending of over 400 Billion dollars in international government stimulus programs, clean renewable energy projects and energy efficiency and conservation programs are growing at increasingly exponential rates.
Numerous governments around the world are demanding that a percentage of their individual country energy production be provided by clean renewable energy in the near future. This helps drive the demand to effectively fund research and development into wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, ocean and river based energy production and battery development for electric vehicles. Large scale wind-produced energy prices will compete with those of fossil-fuels within five years. Therefore, this technology will soon have the ability to efficiently provide clean energy to both commercial and consumer users while meeting the growing demand for energy throughout the developed and emerging economies.
The rapidly decreasing cost of production, along with the obvious major advantages of pollution emissions reductions, a decreased dependence on volatile foreign sources and growing demand, creates the scenario to have clean, renewable energy become a major component in the United States and global energy production models.
After effectively dealing with the large start-up costs, through both private and public funding, clean renewable energy has the possibility to decrease the per-unit price of energy, thereby increasing the standard of living within the United States. In addition, the creation of a clean energy production infrastructure located within our country will add substantially to the creation of hundreds of thousands of new, well paying, long term “Green” jobs in our national economy.
From an environmental standpoint, clean renewable energy and its related widespread conservation and efficiency programs is the ONLY viable option to both minimize further environmental degradation, while working towards creating and maintaining a healthy, stable environment for us, our children, and grandchildren. The carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have and will continue to seriously impact the global ecosystem. The known and still unknown long term costs and the many serious impacts of pollution stemming from burning fossil fuels clearly make its continued usage more expensive and dangerous than renewable options.
The implementation of a comprehensive clean renewable energy program to initially compliment and then eventually become a major part of our overall energy production is one of the most important and pressing political, economic, and environmental mandates that governments have the responsibility to act on. This is the ultimate WIN/WIN/WIN/WIN scenario for people and their families, businesses, government, and our prized and precious environment.
For a detailed overview of this energy issue and a look at the wide range of current and future clean energy options, please view our PowerPoint Presentation on Clean, Renewable Energy.
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