My Thoughts... somewhat random and emotional, on BP, Solar Panels, and what we want

For every kW of Solar installed it offsets roughly 41.4 barrels of oil over its 25 year life span.

So they said it was 3000 barrels a day pouring into the gulf, if we installed a 72.4 kW solar array on a commercial building we would offset that in 25 years.

Now they say it’s 60,000 barrels a day. Ok, not to worry we can offset that in 25 years by building a 1.44 mW system.

I'm not talking cleaning, I'm talking eliminating.

Did you know we can put a 1.44 mW system on a 150,000 square foot roof. That’s 500’ by 300’. That’s a big array and a big building but…

How big is your Walmart? Your Target? Your son or daughter’s elementary, middle , or high school? How about your office building, your warehouse?

No comments about stabilizing your business overhead or reducing operating expenses. Just think about the shift in need. Less drilling, less pipelines, less importing from people we aren’t really sure we want to import from…

Many of the companies I mentioned are moving in this direction. I’m sure their reasons vary but they are moving. The problem is we are trying to change the thinking in a world stuck in a recession. Cash and lending are tight as we sit around and wait for the next shoe to drop. Could this disaster and the restoration, occurring at a snail’s pace, help give momentum to a movement?

I’m not an engineer so I hesitate to pass judgment on the men and women working to fix the problem. I would rather focus on eliminating the potential for the problem. This isn’t about being green or trying to protect mother earth for our children. This is about how do we do things and why are so afraid of change.

As a lose control expert thinks, by the way I am not one of those either, when an accident occurs we spend countless hours examining and investigating it so we can prevent it from happening again. Along with accident investigation and training comes prevention analysis. How could we have avoided the accident? Where is the potential for an accident?

BP and the other Oil companies will tell us how they will prevent this from happening again but can they really? Oil rigs are dangerous business, #14 on the list of most dangerous jobs. http://bit.ly/97BDa5

So can we rely on them to really think without the parameters that the company buys and sells oil? I think they would be doing a disservice to their shareholders if they did that. No, we cannot rely on them. We need to, as a society, think about how we want our world to look.

We have a free source of power floating in the sky every day. From 93 million miles away it has the power to evaporate water and burn our skin. That’s a powerful energy source.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, solar is expensive. It could only be perceived to be expensive because there is no cost associated to polluting. I will not go the route of a political discussion on the government taxing pollution, we’ll save that for another day. What we can agree on is solar has an expense to it and there are costs, be it monetary or otherwise to use fossil fuel power. With that being said what is the true cost associated to our dependency on oil. Is it a catastrophe every 20 or so years (Valdez)? How many more can we afford? How many more do we want to endure? If the solution is there just maybe not wrapped in a box with a bow on it are we not the fearless, the determined, the innovators.

This has been all over the place but my frustration with the BP spill has my mind racing. There is plenty to read on this and it’s hard to decide who to believe. Why believe anyone? The BP’s of our world are a machine with deep pockets and we have been taught to have an inherent need for their services. The question is do we need to be so dependent. Many people have learned the hard way about diversification. Clearly renewable energy, Solar, Wind, Geothermal, etc, are a way of diversifying our energy needs. We have the technology to change some of the potential hazards we currently accept as a “part of doing business.” We just have to change the way we think about them.