Time to Kill the Oil Beast

Meaningful tax credits for home energy conservation would be a great first step. (E.g. adding insulation, more efficient doors and windows, upgrading to more efficient HVAC plants that use alternative heat sinks/sources.) This is technology that is available TODAY, and would probably do much to get the construction and manufacturing sectors. The cheapest energy you can get is the stuff you don???t have to purchase.

There are a few existing or production-ready technologies that are green and either cut oil dependence or outright make refinery ready hydrocarbons.

One 100% existing tech item is the helical wind turbine. These are quiet, have a small footprint, work in any wind direction when mounted vertically and visually small when mounted horizontally. They work in turbulent wind, allowing them to work in city winds.

One production-ready tech is the organic solar cell. Konarka Technologies in Massachusetts is the leader here. Organic dyes are inkjet sprayed onto everyday sheet plastic. The cost per watt is under half of silicon solar cells. The plastic is light and flexible, lowering installation costs and allowing for very creative installs. They work in low light and at off angles far better than silicon, so the cost per watt-hour is even better.

Another production-ready tech is fixed combustion (factory, power plant) emissions running through algae tanks. The algae strip the carbon to grow and emit oxygen back into the atmosphere. The mature algae is physically and chemically similar to oil, as oil is originally algae. It can be refined and make the same end products as oil.

Seville, Spain is scheduled to be 100% solar for electric power by about 2012 using solar thermal plants.

Just 1% of the Sahara Desert converted to solar thermal can generate enough power to run the entire world. The energy and technology is available. We need to build and convert to the new systems, but no new technology is needed.

I believe we should start the divorce from foreign oil Immediately. We could do it in steps. We could start immediately to convert over to natural gas for cars. Present day cars can easily converted to natural gas. Use natural gas as an interim measure until other forms of fuel can be developed, such as hydrogen fuel cells. This won't be easy but we need to start some place. We simply can't wait any longer to get started!