by Daniel Brouse
THE ENERGY IS ALREADY THERE.
THE CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY HARVESTS IT.
Tonight’s homework assignment: Clean Energy Economy.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. But it can be harnessed, converted, stored, transmitted, and used.
The sun is already delivering enormous amounts of energy to Earth.
The atmosphere is already moving.
Winds are already blowing.
Waves and currents are already moving.
The challenge isn’t creating energy from nothing. It is building systems that efficiently capture naturally available energy and convert it into useful electricity.
That is the basic idea behind a clean energy economy:
SUN + WIND + MOVING EARTH
↓
ENERGY HARVESTING
↓
ELECTRICITY
↓
STORAGE + TRANSMISSION
↓
USEFUL WORK
A wind turbine doesn’t create wind. A solar panel doesn’t create sunlight.
They harvest energy that is already moving through the Earth system and convert it into a form we can use.
The economic opportunity is therefore not simply replacing one fuel with another.
It is building an economy around capturing, converting, distributing, storing, and using energy that is already available.
THE ENERGY IS ALREADY THERE.
THE CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY HARVESTS IT.
