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Since man discovered fire, our primary source of energy has come from burning carbon — first wood, then coal, oil, and gas. But this method creates pollution and has warmed the earth, leading to extreme weather incidents worldwide and rising oceans. Old dirty energy is finite in nature, and the difficulty of extracting more means the costs continually increase.
Meanwhile, solar and wind power are the cheapest sources of energy on the planet. As author Bill McKibben notes, with renewable energy, “instead of depending on a few places on earth that have concentrations of fossil fuel…we have an entire planet able to power itself from stuff that it has close to hand because everybody has sun and everybody has wind.” In fact, the developing world is building sun and wind power faster than developed nations.
Some say solar and wind are not reliable, because the sun doesn’t shine at night, and the wind doesn’t always blow. But batteries to store that clean energy and power our lives overnight are getting cheaper and safer as well.
If you believe that solar and wind are bad for whales and birds or the reason for your bills going up, it’s probably because you’ve been served propaganda and lies from the fossil fuel industry, which has been peddling this disinformation since the 1970s. Have you ever seen the effects of an oil spill or a natural gas leak? Oil rigs on the horizon are much uglier than our wind turbines. The biggest problem with solar and wind energy is actually that it’s too cheap. Exxon’s CEO explained last year that his company won’t invest in renewables because they don’t produce “above average returns” for investors.
Obviously for political reasons, the future of big solar and wind power projects are currently imperiled here in the United States. In other parts of the world, deregulation has made home-based solar projects easier to implement. In Germany, for instance, 1.5 million homeowners put up balcony/deck solar, which is currently only legal in Utah in the United States. That should change! We all deserve energy independence and energy freedom!
If you love renewable energy, please join us this Sunday, Sept. 21, in celebrating SUN day, a nationwide celebration of clean renewable energy. You can find events at sunday.earth. New Bedford has two events listed, including a bike ride from Fort to Fort. Join us!
Laura Gardner is a resident of Fairhaven and is Green Sanctuary Chair, Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven.
We have seen and read hundreds of articles like this before, but the reality is our Country’s Energy needs are too great to run on just Wind Turbines and Solar Panels. It’s time to stop the nonsense and come to terms with the facts that it will always take a combination of Fossil Fuels, Hydro, Nuclear, and Clean Energy to run our Country.
Another article that trues to make us go green. Green may be good, but trying to create a Bible, inflicting consequences if not followed are just as bad as the state, country leadership is. It’s there way or the highway. You want wind, solar and electric fine, STOP TRYING TO SHOVE IT DOWN OUR THROAT!
Solar power with crystal’s and powerful battery storage.