The new Sanya Skypump EV charging station. Your own energy independence, right in your own driveway?
Oooh, look at that VAWT*, so clean and beautiful, the sleek stylish look of the whole system… I’m going to have to tell the TV and the iPhone… there may be another in my life!
Welcome the Sanya Skypump.
The new “fuel pump” for your EV (electric vehicle).
Vehicles are the last bastion of dirty energy proponents saying : how are you going to move everything that moves our modern world and economy without fossil fuels?!! (funny, my autocorrect corrected “economy” to “ruining”- food for thought)
Maybe we don’t have all the answers just yet. Is that any reason not to take a couple hundred million dirty cars and trucks off the road as soon as financially and technologically possible?
Wouldn’t that leave plenty of decades worth of fossil fuels for airplanes? (whoops, they don’t need them anymore either- biofuels have recently proven an alternative for that.)
Wouldn’t the industry that it would take to deploy and maintain something like this to everyone employ tens of millions world-wide while making the world a better place??
Right now, your EV could be charging in your driveway, running on kilowatt hours produced from coal, doing nothing to get off of dirty energy.
With this, you just plug in and you have a truly clean driving experience with no dirty energy footprint.
Just think:
No fossil fuels to war over
Doesn’t enrich foreign dictators and other US detractors
No mega profits for natural resource pirates* to funnel through and disrupt worldwide economic and political systems with crazy political Bribes contributions.
Won’t pollute the
air
land, or
water
Notice that solar panels can also be attached to it’s infrastructure, backing up your wind generation!
Oh and of course the sun and wind don’t stop just because you’re not charging your car, and that generated energy can be used for
your other household uses
charging a second car, or
makes you money as you spin and sell pure, clean power onto the grid.
Now that’s truly giving you and I energy independence, right where you and I live.
If you and I had access to true energy inedependence, there’s no need for the government or corporations to “figure it out for us”.
Now I just have to see it in action to believe it! Oh we can do that here:
“U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., is sponsoring the Clean Energy Victory Bonds Act of 2012 (H.R.6275), which would enable the continuation of the production tax credit (PTC) and other clean energy incentives for 10 years.
It would also give all Americans a way to invest in a clean energy future that creates energy independence, jobs and economic opportunities.”
Up to now, financial factors are probably the leading reason renewable energy has not experienced an even larger mass expansion than has already been achieved. Surprisingly, these financial factors may have little or nothing to do with the actual final cost of generating the energy that would be produced.
Although in most cases the “fuel” to be used -like sunshine and the wind- will be free once the project is built, Renewable Energy projects require a large amount of money up-front, which leads to..
Investment, financing and tax break opportunities are generally limited to: utilities, existing energy companies (usually dirty energy-most of whom are fighting against renewables) or deep pocketed hedge funds / private multi-millionaire investors.
This is mainly a US problem due to our investment laws. Theres much talk about getting around this by:
“Community” Renewable Energy programs (We love the concept-it’s just not easily viable in most areas). Check this current example from Great Britain. We would absolutely love to see something like this available here.
Virtual net metering. This is where the solar panels or energy generation do not have to be on your house to count towards your electric bill.
Crowdfunding: Not legal investments for projects in the US at this time, where a large number of people make small investments.
You know we’re always looking for new ways the average person can get involved, on any financial level.
“You mean there isn’t a set policy that supersedes all the political nonsense?”
The question posed by an audience member who, like for others nationwide, the little lightbulb has gone off as they start to understand why we have so little renewable energy.
Today the Long Island Association (LIA) hosted Long Island’s first Offshore Wind Conference.
Hundreds of legislators, business leaders, environmentalists, renewable energy advocates and concerned citizens were on hand as Long Islanders took the next step towards entering the offshore wind era.
Pete Grannis, First Deputy Comptroller for NY State opened things speaking about “perpetual investments” the state makes in order to protect the future of their pension fund, and the analogy to Renewable Energy is quite obvious…and in that, we haven’t been investing. “The cost of inaction is huge.”
He said we are continuously “faced with a false choice: allowing current levels of pollution versus disrupting business”.
Next Catherine Bowes From National Wildlife Federation spoke about her group’s pressing need to get the word out that “climate change is the single greatest threat to wildlife”… and thus they are “100% committed to large-scale Renewable Energy projects” like the offshore wind proposals being talked about.
Executive Director of Renewable Energy Long Island, Gordian Raacke spoke next with a great presentation showing how fossil fuel is to rotary phone as renewable energy is to smart phone. Our power plants are from the rotary phone era, that’s the “modern technology” we’re living with. In comparing the two, “Renewable Energy requires back-up… and costs a little more, but does so much more:
pollution free,
predictible price,
no water usage/destruction,
greater economic development
locally produced energy = money kept in the local economy, “
Adrienne Esposito, the outspoken voice of Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment gave a lively and informative presentation. “LIPA is making decisions now how they will generate the next 2000 Megawatts they need, what will we choose? We need to choose generation with the least impact: wind”.
She went on to highlight that inaction is not an option, “saying no to wind, is saying yes to more fossil fuel and nuclear power… unless you’re turning off your lights.”
Next followed the panel discussion “Economic Benefits of Offshore Wind for NY”. Moderated by LIA’s Kevin Law, who explained why the previous offshore proposal died:
It was too small thus too expensive –> needs economy of scale.
It was too close, thus too controversial –> eliminate the visual impact.
He explained that LIPA had unused land and proposed using that land for large turbine manufacturing, creating both an economical and convenient launch for any offshore wind farm… with further economical development potential as a manufacturing base for other farms.
Karsten Moeller; “Long-term stable regulations secret to renewables’ European success”
Bill Moore; “Wind energy can actually REDUCE ALL OTHER energy generation costs by 2.5 cents / kWh” and “Sea Breeze: Peak output coincides with peak demand”.
Carol Murphy; “8000 mw of renewable energy can be added without affecting grid reliability” and “every 1000 MW of Wind saves $300 million in worldwide energy costs.
Keynote speaker, congressman Tim Bishop was up next, and he didn’t disappoint. He spoke mainly of the difficulties he has in dealing with these issues in the face of unfathomable, and logically unexplainable opposition. “We are paralyzed because of the political difficulty that exists”…
“We are facing a denial of fact.. In energy policy..and to climate change,” he said. “An alarming number of my colleagues are in full-blown denial about what science is clear on.”
When asked by an audience member if he thought they really believed this denialist position, or was this “just politics”, he said “I have to take them at their face value that they really believe in their position” because “the consequences of not dealing with this family of issues is so dire… I hope my colleagues will see this is an avoidable crisis that is not to be ignored.”
He did add, when asked if money was to blame for the seemingly incongruent and completely hypocritical stances of the opposition, that “so far, for this year’s presidential election, 25% of all of the donated money has come from just 16 people”.
When asked what we can do to get the word out to the average voter, he said, “All we can do is just provide people with the facts…and hope they accept those facts.”
In positive news, to free up money to further renewables, he said we should look at lifting the cap on private activity bonds.
Of special interest was the final panel “Offshore Wind: Where Are We Now?” Moderator, Frank Murray of NYSERDA presented “NYS Coastal Management Program’s Offshore Wind Energy Planning” where he explained offshore wind is “inevitible”, and thus it isbeing planned for. He said “innovation will be the key to our economic resurgence.”
He said NYSERDA “can provide good reseacrch investments to indentify projects with benefits reaching beyond our local area”.
He asked YOU, the public get involved with the State Energy Plan:
Please click this picture to give NYSERDA your input on their Energy Plan
“Offshore wind is a key element and this will be a public process. Please read the plan for Wind and/or Solar and let them have YOUR input.”
All Our Energy says- You Can Do So here:
A fascinating day.
We welcome the beginning of the Offshore Wind Era to Long Island.
