Beyond Petroleum

The recent ad campaign mounted by BP would be inspiring if it were not so sad. The bucolic pictures of hard hatted men swinging solar panels into place, climbing atop giant wind powered electric generating turbines, and holding up beakers presumably full of bio-fuels are heart warming. Sadly, each of these technologies is over 100 years old and their effectiveness proven. In the Netherlands, wind power and dikes have allowed them to push back the sea, creating more country. Solar panels have been on most calculators since I can remember, and provided reliable power in virtually all space flights. Bio-fuel has had a proud history as far back as cavemen who used fire to heat their homes. Many of the first steam powered cars ran on wood. It is time non-fossil fuel use. The mess in the Gulf of Mexico just proves what has been said for the last few generations.

I just wish that BP had spent as much on safety as they had on their promotional ad campaign. Perhaps if they had done that, we would not be faced with yet another oil related catastrophe. I cannot understand the big oil mentality of paying lips service to transforming the energy economy, while simultaneously pocketing the largest profits in history. If you take the profits over the last three months alone for BP and the top four US oil companies they made twenty-five billion. Their profit alone was nearly two hundred and fifty dollars per US household. In just three months!

Using this as a starting point, because most of their increased profits were tied to the rising price of oil, which will continue to go up. Every household in the US could be supplied with either a solar furnace (which would provide direct heat in cool climates) or a Photovoltaic system (which would provide electricity in warm climates) Because of scale, approximately one hundred million total units, the cost would be reduced significantly. At current prices, this investment of, say, just a single year's worth of profits could provide half of either home heating costs (in cool climates)or half of the electricity consumed (in warm climates) Even without the benefits of scale, within at least five years, we could have all of our home energy needs met through solar alone. I don't advocate confiscatory tax systems that would make this a government program, I'm just making a point. This is the kind of money we are talking about. Twenty-five billion dollars every three months. Just think what good it could do!