Have you read Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s essay on energy in Vanity Fair? It’s well worth your time if you have yet to see it.
Here’s a quick look at the essential argument:
Carbon dependence has eroded our economic power, destroyed our moral authority, diminished our international influence and prestige, endangered our national security, and damaged our health and landscapes. It is subverting everything we value.
And yet, there is ample reason to be hopeful.
We sit atop the second-largest geothermal resources in the world. The American Midwest is the Saudi Arabia of wind; indeed, North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone produce enough harnessable wind to meet all of the nation’s electricity demand. As for solar, according to a study in Scientific American, photovoltaic and solar-thermal installations across just 19 percent of the most barren desert land in the Southwest could supply nearly all of our nation’s electricity needs.
All I know is I want to be part of this clean energy boom. Entrepreneurs will solve what government won’t. Am I right?