In response to Green Tech Could Get Economy High, With a Little Help From the Feds:
I think investing in green tech cannot lead you wrong. People seem to resist change almost naturally, but the fact of the matter is that our economies are always sliding in peril until a new innovative technology comes along. Somehow my intuition tells me that the next phase must deal with energy. Solving this would take care of so much. Primarily it would provide for more much needed homegrown jobs, it would lead us to a more environmentally friendly approach, but more importantly it would wean us away from oil. Besides, much more can come of this.
I find it ironic how we despise the way of life of these oil rich countries in the defense of democracy yet we feed them by sustaining our addiction to oil. Being reliant on them will only let them prosper. A little piece of history... In the 1970's when the price of oil went to record heights we finally realized how reliant we were on oil and Jimmy Carter vowed to solve the energy crisis. Now there are many reasons as to why that soon became a thing of the past but i find it "coincidental" how the price of oil soon drastically decreased after talk of the governments investing in alternative energies. It is at this time period that OPEC finally realized that keeping prices sky high would only give them short term profits, and hurt their long term profits if other technologies were to be developed. Honestly, why are our policies so harsh towards alternative energies? Why is it so inconvenient for me to put up a solar panel on my rooftop if i'm willing to do so?
1 comment:
Well well well, my favourite topic ;) I'll try to keep this short:
Upon reading the article from WIRED, one particular sentence stood out to me. It was "Thus far much of the effort has been focused on technology and policy solutions, with very little attention given to how this change can be enabled through creative financing." Optimal distribution of investments/funding isn't easy and it looks like that's what the world needs help with right now. We already have all the nerds in the labs trying to optimize solar cells, we already have organizations, such as Enfinity (www.enfinitycorp.com/EN), who actually have an office in Ottawa (yeey!). They deliver and install large solar power structures for the business market... but who's organizing all the finances? Enfinity also has a finance sector, but that does not extend to the rest of the world's RE (renewable energy) companies. Big people in big places need to come together, devise a financial plan, and stick with it. The many smaller scale companies can't make that much of a difference individually...
One last thing. Tomas asked why it's inconvenient for him to build a solar panel on his rooftop. I guess I wasn't clear the last time I tried to justify this, so I'll try again. Solar panels have many disadvantages and advantages mainly in terms of cost and sustainability. The most widely used solar panels are made of silicon, which make them one of the most efficient solar cells, but they're not cheap. And don't even get me started about the cost of maintaining the things! All that ice and snow and rain... everyone should consider maintenance costs. For an individual home, I think it would be costly. As Tomas said, people look at it in terms of immediate profits. It would help if the government helped people invest in such things to help ease the pain of the short term disadvantages (as the article mentioned: "it's cheaper in the short term to just keep what you have"). Once again I am on the topic of financing. What a coincidence ;)
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