Philip's Comments

Here in the USA electricity is still relatively cheap, provided by still-abundant albeit decreasing-quality coal. So homes heated electrically are still relatively cheap to heat. Most of the remaining homes (about 51%) are heated by natural gas which is just approaching peak or already there, so these homes are also relatively cheap to heat, FOR NOW. Hot water is heated by both coal-electricity and gas-heat as well so it's still relatively cheap to heat. Within the decade I think we'll see prohibitive cost increases in these energy sources and so in home and water heating costs --natural gas because it will have peaked, and coal because the cost of gasoline and diesel to mine and transport it will soar with peak oil and because serious carbon-reduction mandates to mitigate global warming will be costly to execute (carbon tax and "carbon capture and storage technology" CCS). When American homeowners feel the severe space-heating and water-heating cost bite they will quickly learn that the low-hanging fruit for space heating and water heating is solar thermal, naturally. That's when we're sure to see the US common wealth (our tax money) subsidizing domestic retrofits for solar thermal in the form tax credits and business/R&D subsidy, maybe at a higher priority than domestic photovoltaic installations --we can survive without our electrified labor-saving and entertainment devices but not without habitable shelter. But I hope that with Obama in the White House, promising a government-backed renewable energy revolution, we'll see solar thermal in the spotlight much sooner because it is, as Petri stated, the natural, the biggest and the most economical player in making shelter habitable. Thanks for your clear statement, Petri, and I appreciate Sweden's leadership in national sustainable living initiative. People are wise here too, but still too comfortable and sleeping. When the USA wakes up, we'll pull strongly with the rest of humanity to a bright future.

Some possibilities to wring more services out of the physical plant while generating income to reduce electricity cost: 1. apply solar selective surface on the upper portion of the tower to warm the air more there, thus increasing the solar chimney effect and driving convection within the tower itself. 2. rent the tower for mounting electronic devices for communications (cell phone and HAM radio repeaters), weather service sensors, defense devices. 3. food drying facility (including crops grown there during the growing season) or grass-drying or adobe brick drying or green brick production beneath the membrane (drying by heat and wind evaporation; this will also provide thermal mass to enhance night-time /24 hour convection) 4. mount wind turbines on swivel rings for swinging them to the leeward side of the column, starting 30 feet above the ground, 3 turbines per ring /all facing into the wind 5. where a suitable aquifer is present beneath the tower, wind turbines could pump water from it high up the tower for gravity flow to irrigation pipes mounted on the membrane structure for watering crops beneath 6. use the membrane as a watershed to collect rainwater for irrigation of adjacent crops (if not needed for sub-membrane crops) --the membrane watershed will assure normal crop-watering of an equal area of cropland during a 50% drought (where half the needed rain falls in a growing season), or during a 66% drought (where 1/3 needed rain falls) for a cropland area half the membrane area, etc.

I think we may be understating the economic boons of renewable energy. The conversion to the new "post-carbon world" paradigm of efficiency, sustainability and renewable energy may entail rebuilding of the global infrastructure which will mean economic activity on a scale similar to the World War II mobilization. This and renewable energy's preservation of economic activity as fossil fuels languish constitute immense economic benefit. Pushed by the urgent mandates of fossil-energy replacement and the war on global warming, we may see massive enterprise like: a new power-grid to bring remote-generated renewable energy to points of use, expansion of electric mass transit, return of manufacturing jobs to the US as rising combustion-fuel costs become prohibitive to distant markets, and an explosion of new agricultural jobs as a multitude of small local organic farms replace distant, energy-guzzling industrial farms. Renewable energy is the third great revolution of civilization!

Besides being expert and objective, Lester Brown cares. That's why his words ring true. We should not need his careful analysis of the facts to realize that not acting in harmony with Nature and our own hearts must end in deprivation and unhappiness. If we secure the life and happiness of others, we secure our own well-being. If we appreciate and preserve innocent Nature then we honor and preserve the mainstay of our physical existence and the source of so many blessings in our lives. We should turn to renewables and each other, and strive to amass happiness rather than amass wealth. It's fun and fulfilling, and everyone wins. Philip Anderson, Monrovia Maryland

Never heard global warming - fossil fuels - and the need for action put so simply, clearly and effectively. Thanks Dennis Dimick! and Stephen. I'm quoting this in all my discussions with family and friends.

I agree with Tom that solar PV is not the only supply answer, but I sense it is part of the answer. And though that solar PV electricity is 5 times more expensive than CURRENT grid-power costs, how much will it be once the system has paid for itself? --ZERO, if grid-connected /no batteries are involved.

The microgrid and local power generation make sense not only for local businesses but for homes as well. A home which powers itself uses a grid no greater than the line from the wind turbine or PV system, plus the house circuitry. If this home system also produces one-third excess power for the national energy commonwealth, and 20 million more homes do likewise, then we will have come a long way to achieve secure, benign national energy. And if some of the many trillions to be spent on the new energy paradigm of the post-petroleum age is paid to individual citizens for home power-plant construction and excess power purchase, then we will distribute not only power generation but wealth as well, and where it will do great good. And a home power-plant helps secure the owners in their old age with free energy and energy-sale income.

The underdeveloped countries might be the hardest hit economically and agriculturally from the looming catastrophic effects of global climate change and peak-oil prices, because they do not have the buying power of the developed countries who may snatch up limited food and oil in a shortage crisis. So it is paramount that the developed countries get weaned from oil to save Nature's renewable cornucopia for all, and PV is part of the solution. CSP rings true since it effectively increases the area of the silicon so we can use less silicon with the same effect. And the wealthy consumer markets will carry the burden of widespread PV development so that it will be affordable to all. Meanwhile, we are a one-world nation of humanity in a one-world biosphere. Our survival depends on our mutual effort, and our happiness has always depended on the happiness of each individual sister and brother

All the stress on ethanol's purpose and R&D seems to be on maintaining the transportation status quo. But what about securing our food and shelter, which are increasingly in jeopardy? Ethanol can provide convenient domestic cooking fuel. It can be produced independently, locally, sustainably and on-site from unpopular garden crops like beets, with zero-cultivation energy input, unlike commercial ethanol crops like corn, and with minimal distillation energy. We can secure our shelter with locally produced, low-energy input cooking fuel in the form of ethanol, and with the proven independent, green and sustainable energy of PV, wind, earth sheltering, solar thermal, and solar passive design. And with the home garden and local, self-sufficient organic farms we can secure our food with minimal external energy input. This will free at least 20% of our national energy for use in streamlined, personal and mass transportation in a simplified infratstructure powerable by renewables.

Practical and visionary! and encouraging.

Regarding "Fuels through Farming" to produce ethanol for machines, what about fuel for the human body, food. If Hawaii depends on distant farms like the rest of us, then costs of food are going to go up or be inadequate due to increased energy costs, weather changes, and other factors. I hope some of Hawaii's "agricultural revitalization" will include small family organic farms which are local, sustainable, self-sufficient, efficient, and which will improve people's heath, employ workers whose jobs have gone overseas, and first and foremost provide a dependable, energy-independent food supply. We may need to reserve much of the renewables and oil for building the housing and infra-structure of the oil-free future, and for critical transportation. Fuel for people is a greater necessity than fuel for transportation, although they will always be somewhat interconnected. But unlike transportation there is no substitute for food.

I wonder if hydrogen's place as a benign and useful energy-carrier is primarily in manufacturing and distribution of goods, in an infrastructure re-designed for mass-transportation for the long-distance exchange of essential goods and services, and an agriculture re-designed for sustainable, self-sufficient, low-energy, local production and local distribution of food. Perhaps hydrogen technology will advance to the point where we can affordably produce it from renewables and distribute it in this lower energy-demand redesign of our economy. I'm all for cars to facilitate our liberty and fun, but having lived in Europe I know there are more energy-efficient ways to get around which can grant us more liberty and happiness to boot. With efficient mass transit and cooperative use of fewer, more efficient cars, could renewable energy in hydrogen run the transportation show, affordable to us and Nature? And, hey, bicycles and horses and buggies and walking are lot of fun.