The latest crisis in Pakistan, holding up fuel convoys, is driving the U.S. military harder to develop and use portable solar to support the troops. Fossil fuel is vulnerable to attacks making an easy target. The convoys that haul fuel to bases have been sitting ducks for insurgents. Fossil fuel accounts for 30 to 80 percent of the load in convoys into Afghanistan, bringing costs as well as risk. While the military buys gas for just over $1 a gallon, getting that gallon to some forward operating bases costs $400.
This is a serious time in history and the U.S. military understands how important is to get off oil imported from the middle east is a bad thing. (Too bad some politicians don’t get it)
California, the eighth largest economy in the world, and a energy trendsetter for most of the globe, especially in renewable energy development. California is blessed with renewable resources like vast areas open to solar installations, wind and geothermal energy. Sacramento state leaders, like Governor Schwarzenegger, have responded to the call creating numerous solar installation rebates and incentives which many Californian’s have taken advantage of.
The California Energy Commission is pursuing ambitious goals, policies, and programs on climate change to do our share to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Californians have embarked on an ambitious “Million Solar Roof” initiative intended to capture California’s renowned solar energy. The program will create 3,000 megawatts of installed solar photovoltaic capacity by 2018.
Sacramento Solar News – In the desert of California, a massive solar array will soon be powering 800,000 homes and bringing work to several hundred California households putting money back into local California communities.
Concentrating solar power is a technology that uses mirrors to reflect and concentrate solar radiation into a collector usually located in the center of the mirror. The solar thermal energy is then used to heat oils that in turn turn water into steam turning turbines to product electricity. These utility scale systems are complex to build but California has vasts deserts waiting to turn our clean renewable energy which produces jobs.