While we've doubled renewable energy, it was only a tiny portion of the energy portfolio to start with. But what we did was totally take the lid off fossil fuel extractions in every way imaginable. On the day following [Barack] Obama's trip to the Louisiana floods, you know, we had, I think, another 25 million acres that went on sale in the Gulf for further extraction.
Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy.
We're clearly coming to the end of the fossil fuel era. We have the technology to shift to renewable energy, we have the will of the people. The only thing that's keeping us back is the fossil fuel industry's hold on our political system. That's what we need to change.
Renewable energy fits well into the conservative mindset by allowing competition into the energy markets so that consumers have choice. The system as it is, with big utilities monopolizing the energy playing field or fossil fuel energy being given massive subsidies so that they are on a kind of corporate welfare, is the antithesis of conservative principles.
Obviously, nu-que-lar power is, uh, a renewable source of energy, and the less demand there is for non-renewable sources of energy, like fossil fuels, the better it off it is for the American people.
This administration [of Barack Obama] has massively expanded fossil fuel extraction. So while they give lip service to it, they actually do not walk the walk that we need to walk if we are going to get out of here alive.
I did very much like [Barack] Obama's attack on fossil fuel subsidies for fossil fuel companies. We asked for that in demonstrations and petitions, and now we'll try to push it forward.
Every candidate running for president has got to answer the following very simple question: At a time when we need to address the planetary crisis of climate change, and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainability, should we continue to give $135 billion in tax breaks and subsidies over the next decade to fossil fuel companies?
I like the analogy that the way that we live in Western Society, the energy that we consume in the form of fossil fuels, is the energy equivalent in pre-fossil fuel terms of having 500 slaves.
There is an urgent need to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, dramatically reduce wasted energy, and significantly shift our power supplies from oil, coal, and natural gas to wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources.
With each month that passes, a solar panel gets 2 or 3 percent cheaper. So while we're holding the fossil fuel industry in check, the engineers in the renewable energy world are undercutting them from the other side.
Renewable energy is far more labor-intensive than fossil fuel production.
Renewable energy is not unaffordable as the fossil fuel giants would like us to believe.
I know just enough about thermodynamics to understand that if it takes too much fossil-fuel energy to create ethanol, that's a very stupid way to solve an energy problem.
The sunlight ... that strikes Earth’s land surface in two hours is equivalent to total human energy use in a year. While much of that sunlight becomes heat, solar energy is also responsible for the energy embodied in wind, hydro, wave, and biomass, each with the potential to be harnessed for human use. Only a small portion of that enormous daily, renewable flux of energy will ever be needed by humanity.
I think the fossil fuel industry is genuinely freaked out by the combination of the price collapse, the divestment movement, and that fact that renewable energy is getting so cheap so fast.
Renewable energy is not more expensive than fossil fuel when you factor in life-cycle costs.