Glad to be a part of this community; the conversations are very interesting from what I have read thus far. I am highly interested in discussion clean energy sources that work in harmony with nature, and so I thought I'd start out my posting in the science section of the forum by sharing a little section on solar energy from a book that I am currently reading.
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The following plan would solve all our energy, economic and pollution problems within a few years.
Declare war for solar energy: The President would make an executive order to build and install enough solar cells to supply all of the US energy needs in two years and we would probably end up doing it in one year. We were the people that even with millions of men out of the country fighting made one B-17 bomber every hour on an assembly line a mile long. Before the war, the factory that did it made cars with a few thousand parts. The four engine flying fortress that was ruling the skies over Europe had over a million parts. We were the guys that made a complete ship from start of finish in four days at just one shipyard. Women were doing a lot of the work. Imagine what we could do now?
We mobilize our manufacturing as we did for World War II to build a new free clean energy system. If we could do it during a war, we can do it in peacetime even faster. We form a war department to build it.
Mobilize for peace and prosperity: We build the mile long factories like we used to build planes and ships fast in Would War ll. We built the factories to build the planes and ships in just a few months and we could do it even faster now. We build them in different parts of the country that have high unemployment. These factories would be able to spit out miles of inexpensive solar panels everyday. Other companies would transport and install them in our counties deserts and on both sides of our interstate freeways, railroad tracks and on roofs. Putting them next to railroad tracks makes installing and cleaning easy.
Like laying track: We have competitions between companies and give bonuses to the companies that make the most and lay the most solar panels in a day. When we were building the transcontinental railroad, the companies were getting bonuses for every mile of track they laid. This motivated them to build many miles of track a day. We just do something similar for laying solar panels.
We get our defense contractors involved in making it happen.
Pentagon: We get our pentagon involved in the war for free energy, just as we would do for a war. They have the organization skills we will need. It is why it was really created. The pentagon will be used to create a heaven on earth. We handle the whole thing like a military operation. If we do, we can do it fast.
We form thousands of companies to work on different parts of the system in different locations. We start with the thousands of miles of tracks we have in our deserts and other high sunshine locations and just go from there. At the same time, we install solar panels on every home and factory. Money will not be an issue. The government will supply the hardware and labor. We would be adding millions of watts of free clean electricity to the power grid everyday by installing miles of solar panels everyday. We would just keep doing this until the solar panels supply all Americas energy needs.
At the same time, our automotive industry starts mass-producing inexpensive electric cars to use the inexpensive electricity we will be creating. They will also make natural gas and hydrogen cell vehicles. This will make the struggling auto industry start booming. When we wake up we will not spend billions retooling to make a different new car every year, we will just make minor improvements to a proven design. This will cut waste and costs related to vehicles in half. It will create more jobs, not less. Our total economy will start booming and so will the world’s economy, because they will starts doing the same thing with our help.
On a smaller scale, we start developing and building the towers, geothermal, windmill and any other promising technology and down the road after we see what is most economical, we gradually replace the less efficient technologies. The government will provide large grants to any company developing promising energy technology and more efficient solar cells, such as nano cell technology.
We go full out on the solar cells, because we know we can do it now.
We just put less proven technologies on the back burner until after we have built a solar cell system using the current proven technology.
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From pages 194-195 of The Present
You can read the full-text here: (Website deleted by mod)
I think this book brings up some legit points about what is going to be important technologically in the next few years. It is interesting to note that the Democrats just got a clear majority in the senate, so now we can make some big changes, and I expect we will. The energy thing explained in this book is the "big one," and I expect it to start happening in the next year. IMO, it will solve all or economic problems.
Share your thoughts please!