16 July 2008

energenius

Pay attention to this man: Amory Lovins. He knows energy and knows how to move us far, far away from fossil fuels. He was on Charlie Rose last night and it was one of the most engaging interviews I've seen in a long time. (Here's an interview from a 2006 broadcast)

And here's a clip from a Nova program, "Saved by the Sun" (which aired last year):



If we follow Mr. Lovins plans, we'll be independent from oil in about 30 years, by the 2040s. Plus, his plans will help the economy while not hurting our quality of living. Read more about Amory Lovins and The Rocky Mountain Institute here.

go arnie!

Who would have thought that the muscly star of film classics such as "Conan the Barbarian" and "Kindergarten Cop" would have said this about the state of energy in this country? Governator, I applaud you.


SCHWARZENEGGER: (I)t just really means basically this administration did not believe in global warming, or they did not believe that they should do anything about it since China is not doing anything about it and since India is not willing to do the same thing, so why should we do the same thing?

But that’s not how we put a man on the moon. We did not say let everyone else do the same thing, then we will do it. We said we want to be the pioneers, we want to be out there in front. [snip]

Anyone that tells you that drilling, nuclear power, alternative fuels, fuel cells, solar, all of those things will bring down the price right now, I think is pulling wool over your eyes, because we know that all of those would take at least 10 years.

But that should not mean that we should not do those things, because here is the important thing. What’s the biggest problem in America? It’s not that we don’t have any ideas. It’s just that we are not consistent, that we have Jimmy Carter in the late ’70s that came in with a great energy policy, talked about shale oil exploration, giving tax credits for people that were investing in windmills and in solar and all of those things.

Then President Reagan came in and scrapped the whole thing, because the oil price came down and says, “Well, this doesn’t make any sense financially.”

There were many countries all over the world that stayed with the program, that said, “We are going to continue,” even thought the oil price comes down. In Germany with solar, for 30 years they’ve been working on that, and they’re now number one in solar, number one.

I think that’s what we need to do. We need to stay the course.
[George Stephanopolous via Crooks and Liars]