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.
Energy markets can be thought of as suffering from appendicitis due to fossil fuel subsidies. They need to be removed for a healthy energy economy.
Improved energy productivity and renewable energy are both available in abundance—and new policies and technologies are rapidly making them more economically competitive with fossil fuels. In combination, these energy options represent the most robust alternative to the current energy system, capable of providing the diverse array of energy services that a modern economy requires. Given the urgency of the climate problem, that is indeed convenient.
In reality, Republicans have long been at war with clean energy. They have ridiculed investments in solar and wind power, bashed energy-efficiency standards, attacked state moves to promote renewable energy and championed laws that would enshrine taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels while stripping them from wind and solar.
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 think there's a really great amount of potential for Hawaii to become an example of what's possible with renewable energy because there are so many renewable resources here: energy, solar energy, and wind energy. There's so much potential here.
Replacing traditional sources of energy completely with renewable energy is going to be a challenging task. However, by adding renewable energy to the grid and gradually increasing its contribution, we can realistically expect a future that is powered completely by green energy.
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.
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.
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.
The UK still has time to accelerate the take-up of renewable energy and put the nation on a path towards clean energy that is cheaper, stable and more sustainable. We have a stark choice: We can stay stuck in the last century's boom and bust approach to our economy in the way we consume energy and resources, or create a sustainable, stable and renewable energy infrastructure with the long term environmental and employment benefits that ensue
This curious faith is predicated on the notion that we will soon develop unlimited new sources of energy: domestic oil fields, shale oil, gasified coal, nuclear power, solar energy, and so on. This is fantastical because the basic cause of the energy crisis is not scarcity: it is moral ignorance and weakness of character. We don't know how to use energy or what to use it for. And we cannot restrain ourselves. Our time is characterized as much by the abuse and waste of human energy as it is by the abuse and waste of fossil fuel energy.
In nature the only source of energy is from the sun. So in ecological systems everything comes from the sun through the process of photosynthesis whereas now in human built environment our source of energy is from fossil fuels, renewable, wood energy or hydro-energy but it is not from the sun. So until we are able to operate and run a human built environment by imitating photosynthesis it will be a long while before we can have a true eco-system.
Clubbing energy efficiency with renewable energy will give us the much-needed window to incubate the renewable energy sector, particularly large solar, without having to increase the price of electricity.
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.
By increasing the use of renewable fuels such as ethanol and bio-diesel, and providing the Department of Energy with a budget to create more energy efficiency options, agriculture can be the backbone of our energy supply as well.