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Creative Thinking - Solutions to Global Warming
Renewable energy systems provides continuous free electricity once set up ; Governments could pay for them outright and we could all have free electricity for years and years and years.
Date: 4/29/2007 1:11:26 PM ( 17 y ) ... viewed 2573 times
note - this essay was prepared by me for with the view of Canadian solutions to global warming in mind, as I AM CANADIAN. Things are a little different in the USA, where it would be a bit tougher to talk like this.
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Solving Global Warming Requires Creative Solutions
In Canada, we are lucky that global warming solutions are being demanded at a time when there is lots of "public money" floating around. Government surpluses have never been this big, in both provincial and federal budgets. These surpluses gives us an opportunity to "think outside the box" in looking for ways to reduce our fossil fuel emissions.
There has been a real dearth of creative thinking when it comes to global warming. So far, we have stuck to only the ways we do things now, which is that private industry has to be involved in every solution proposed. This is a global emergency, a problem unlike any problem we have ever tackled before, and if we insist on using the same institutions and methods that got us to this point we might be "going down with the ship". If we exclusively use The Great Ship Capitalism to solve global warming, it will end up costing us much more and we will not reach the emissions reductions targets we need to reach. {The added costs of 'the corporate way' are profits and CEO wages and higher costs for labour, and in every way private industry will make this harder to do}.
It seems to me that we keep paying for things that we owned but gave away to private/corporate entities who trun around and charge us for using. We are suc***s to be willing to continue this system 'where we all pay into a single corporate entity for something we all use', and create billionaires in the process - we payed for that person's wages. Why don't WE - the people - own these utilities? - because privatisation allows for priviledged individuals get those gauranteed profits.
An example is the proposed "world's largest solar farm" in Ontario Canada, where government money will be used for start-up costs and then it will be turned over to the corporation that government is partnered with for the project. That solar farm could be ours, the publics, and furthermore it could all be paid for up-front with government surpluses and we could have "free' electricity" for years and years. That is the real advantage in "renewable energy systems" where no fuel or other input costs are needed once they are set up!!! Thats a huge advantage over coal-fired electrical plants, and is not being mentioned in the mass media because it does not suit the corporate model.
Why not declare global warming a national emergency [which it is] and use our provincial and federal government budget surpluses to set up a factory that produces the solar panels [to reduce the expense of some private entity profiteering on it] and then set up about 1000 'solar farms'. They will produce enough electricty for power 6000 X 1000 = 6 million homes, about one-third of Canada's total need. The cost of the one being proposed now is $300million, but by producing panels in government factories, that cost will go down to about $50million to $150million depending on wages and costs of materials. At $50M, times 1000, the total cost for this global warming solution will be $50Billion. There are enough budget surpluse dollars to cover that this year alone, and if need be, that cost could be spread out over 10 years with loans [which should be avoided because loans will add to the total cost] . It is reasonable to think that the various governments across Canada could come up with $5B a year to address a problem of this magnitude.
The advantage of publicly owned renewable energy projects is this: They will produce "free" electricity for many many years once the initial setup costs is covered. 'Covering the setup costs' is not a factor when it is all paid for upfront like this. We do not need to wait until the elctricity is sold and to use those funds to pay for the loans for the project. Getting away from all that allows us to have "free electricity" , and in practical terms, the renewable energy projects can be used to REDUCE our power bills by blending in the "free" electricity with whatever amount we need to buy fromthe provate producers.
This is a slap to the face of energy corporations. It is not meant to punish, but rather it is just a good move for the public, and will result in reductions of greenhouse gases. The corporate culture had their chance to solve global warming, and all they did was pay out big money for sell-out scientists to produce reports using 'fake science', and they knew it was fake, that denied the reality of global warming. Corporate Culture delayed our awakening by a decade, and is still getting in the way of solutions to global warming. We cannot afford that anymore.
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