Generating Solar Power

Record prices at gas pumps and the continued conflict in the Middle East, Nigeria, and other areas of significance to our oil-driven economy have made it clear to most Americans that we are in desperate need of finding new opportunities in our energy supply and production. It has been said over and over that we need to reduce our dependency on oil, for it will run out one day. So-called energy 'experts' and analysts are insistent that inexpensive oil has "peaked" or will do so very shortly. What this means for us is an expensive future-unless we can find new ways of powering our computerized and electronic world, sources which are substitutes to oil.

Another reason to switch to other forms of energy is because our current sources are too damaging to the planet. While the global warming trend is said to be completely caused by the activities of mankind; it more than likely is just a natural cycle and there's nothing we can do about it except prepare for the effects of it, however, we without doubt contribute to the destruction of our environment and to other dangers such as air pollution with our current energy sources. Coal is another of the 'dirty' sources of energy that we should wean ourselves off of-as with oil it won't last forever and the mining of it is dangerous and environmentally troublesome.

Nations which have turned industrialized in modern decades will definitely need the benefits of alternative energy research and development, for they are currently doing more damage to the environment than the United States. The United States, Japan, and some European nations have put into practice studies and programs for the advance of alternative energy sources, and are as a result already leading the way in creating a greener environment. Developing nations such as China and India should look to Japan and the West as models of what research and development to give government backing and private investment currency to. We could also add great robustness to our own economy by being at the forefront of such alternative energy sources development and then marketing the technologies and services to nations like India, China, Brazil, and so on and so forth.

Biofuels from things like "supertrees" and soybeans, refined hydroelectric technology, natural gas, hydrogen fuel cells, the further building of atomic energy plants, the continued development of solar energy photovoltaic cells, more research into wind-harnessed power-all of these are viable energy sources that can act as alternatives to the mammoth amounts of oil and coal that we presently are so dependent on for our very lifestyles. The energy of the future is green, help it along by building your own wind generator.