Whether you believe in global warming or not, and whatever the causes-natural cycle or man made, the facts are undisputed. The climate is changing and more and more severe weather will be happening on a less predictable model. It is no longer an issue of being "GREEN" but simply one of being prepared. Sustainablility needs to be our motto and everthing we do needs to be reliable and sustainable at an economic and technological level. The Renewable Energy Industry has promoted the idea of grid tied wind and solar power systems (without energy storage) as an inexpensive way to supposedly help the environment (and boost sales of Solar Modules and wind generators) without any effort on the part of consumers or manufacturers in real energy efficiency. The truth is that none of these systems, to date, have prevented any coal from being burned by a US or European power plant. Just a fact. Industry and government are divided on what will work for our energy future. Some sources claim to be able to utilize clean coal technologies, but none of these are proven to work. Wind turbine proponents claim wind generation will be able to provide all electric power but there are serious doubts about this claim or how many wind generators it would take to do this. Further, many want to have an all electric transportation network charging from the grid, which is nearly impossible since we cannot reasonably provide for the current electric use. And no grid-tied PV system can actually claim to provide all the power for any home without energy storage, since during the night, all grid tie PV systems are not operable, thus all this power must come from the grid. You cannot store energy on the grid, so this claim is perposterous.

Since 2006, we have seen a very noticeable and ominous change in weather across the USA. 100 year weather events are now commonplace. Seattle, New Orleans, Florida, and California and now the Northeast and South have all seen this phenomenon and everyone in between will very soon. 2010 is shaping up to be even worse. Utility services both electrical and non-electrical are under extreme pressure from already overburdened demand and it will not take much to reach the tipping point. The 2006 storm in Seattle (2006) resulted in a multi-million $ cleanup to restore and repair services and the local utilities (and customers) will be paying this bill for years to come. The 2009/2010 winter season has seen several major storms with ice and snow in Texas and Florida. It is guaranteed that nature has more in store for us. The weather is just one issue, as siesmic activity is way up all over the planet, as evidenced by the first eathquake in the Caribbean in 600 years. Hopefully, no one is naive enough to assume that either government or private enterprise will be able to fix this situation in any meaningfull way. People need to take action, be prepared, grow local, think local and get back to providing some of the essentials for ourselves.

"GREEN WASHING" is a term you will hear more of in the coming months. Here are the facts about so-called GREEN programs;

• Green tags: People are being encouraged to purchase so-called green power, which supposedly is power purchased from RE (renewable energy) sources. Since only 2% of the national energy production is from renewable energy, how can millions of people purchase power made from renewable sources? And what do you think the utilities are really doing with the money?
• Carbon Trading: In essence, companies are going to pay for the privilege of polluting? Does this sound reasonable? This idea will simply propogate an entire new sector of high risk securities on Wall Street, with a very few folks at the top making lots of money creating new ponzi schemes built around things of no tangible value.
• Grid-tie energy systems without energy storage: People somehow seem to think that, if I put power into the grid, someone else will be able to use it. Even more preposterously, that this small amount of energy will make the utility power plant scale back its output and take some load off the system. It would be nice to think this is true, but it simply is not. Utility power plants must operate at full tilt all the time for many reasons, some are financial and some are technical. Even if there were over one million houses connected to a grid with 2000 watts of solar panels each (1,000,000 x 2000 = 2,000,000,000 watts) that 2000 megawatts could hardly help the grid with over 902 million mega-watts of possible load. Further, without energy storage as part of the RE system, that 2000 megawatts would not be a consistent provider to the grid. Grid tie systems without energy storage are simply a way for the solar industry to sell solar panels. Did you ever notice how many oil companies manufacture solar panels?

We simply are not discriminating enough in the electrical appliances and gadgets we buy. We actually no longer need or can afford to maintain the hugely expensive grid work of electrical and other transmission infrastructure we have developed. Nearly 79% of all power is generated by burning coal, the primary contributor to pollution and global warming. Every coal plant smokestack you see is dumping millions of tons of ash, CO2, and even radioactive elements into the atmosphere every second, so people can run electric hot water heaters and heat pump systems. This grid infrastructure benefits none but a few corporate entities. From the open pit coal mines of Wyoming to the deep shaft mines of Kentucky, Coal mines are the new super-fund sites of the 21st century and as history has clearly illustrated, large corporations NEVER clean up their own messes. Almost every home in the United States could be powered by renewable energy of some kind to a greater or lesser extent, thus drastically lowering our cost of infrastructure and energy development and lessening the effect of the rapidly changing climatic situation. As the GRID itself cannot store ANY energy, we must provide energy storage in all the systems we use. With current trends in hydrogen production and deliverable hydrogen systems, we will soon not need these burdensome fossil fuel delivery systems. Energy conservation aside, viable energy storage systems are available and cost about the same as a new washer-dryer combo. We entered the industrial age on a non-sustainable foundation and have reached the point of no-return, we either become a sustainable society or go the way of the Romans, Mayans, Egytians, etc.