America Could Have Dropped Big Oil Decades Ago -- What Happened?

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Aaron Skirboll

America Could Have Dropped Big Oil Decades Ago -- What Happened?
Renewables are still just scraping by, while we're beholden to dirty fossil fuels. An important history lesson explains why.

June 19, 2012 |


This story is not new. Today, solar energy is picking up momentum. But despite the current numbers and the recent raves, the solar saga, and that of renewable energy as a whole, has been going on for decades. It is a history of false starts and stutter steps.

First, the good news. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), 2011 showed record-breaking numbers for U.S. solar installations. The industry's best year ever saw demand rise by 109 percent over the previous year. With tremendous incentives and benefits for homeowners, and as prices continue to decline, the future looks bright for this alternative energy source.

However a quick glance to the past throws harsh light on the fact that we've been at this precipice before. In 1978, the White House Council on Environmental Quality issued this glowing statement: "Our conclusion is that with a strong national commitment to accelerated solar development and use, it should be possible to derive a quarter of U.S. energy from solar by the year 2000. For the year 2020 and beyond, it is now possible to speak hopefully, and unblushingly, of the United States becoming a solar society."

The key words here being "strong national commitment," because just as timber, coal, oil, gas, and nuclear received enormously strong federal support, solar needs the same kind of government backing, which as of yet, the sector has not seen. The statement should instead read, We could become a solar society, if only we wanted to become a solar society. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/155861/america_could_have_dropped_big_oil_decades_ago_--_what_happened/

[leftyohiolib]

1. what happened? ronnie reagan happened

[get the red out]

3. Yep

Absolutely.

[deutsey]

2. Money...

it's a hit.

Don't give me that do-goody-good bullshit.

-Pink Floyd