“Kennedy also urged the renewable-energy industry to make natural gas companies their friends. While many natural-gas companies still see themselves as more aligned with oil and coal than with renewables, some — such as Chesapeake Energy and T. Boone Pickens’ company, Mesa Power — have begun to realize they are environmentalists, Kennedy said.”

This company, and its head CEO, Aubrey McClendon, is not interested in the environment. McClendon is hoping to recoup his billion dollar loss last year, as well as the company’s investment (and McClendon’s stock shares) in the mineral rights on about 1.5 million acres in southern New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that are part of the Marcellus Shale. Retrieving natural gas from the Marcellus shale is not “clean energy.” The gas is only reachable by a technique called hydrofracking, in which a mix of water and drilling chemicals are injected under pressure to fracture rock to release trapped gas. There are not enough agents working at the DEC to ensure our land and water are not polluted, as has already happened in Pennsylvania. The chemicals (from Halliburton) are toxic and are so many that it is impossible for landowners to test their wells and property conclusively prior to Chesapeake’s drilling. Afterwords, it will be impossible for the landowner to prove that the pollutants present in the soil/water weren’t present before the drilling took place. Then, Chesapeake cannot be held accountable and they will walk away with their coffers full, unaccountable to landowners left with uninhabitable/unsellable land. How is this considered environmental? Please don’t paint Chesapeake Energy as being so, or of this kind of natural gas being “clean.” It is not.
It is interesting to note that McClendon operates a foundation, “American Clean Skies Foundation,” which exists solely to “teach” the idea that natural gas is “clean.” Hydrofracking is not clean; this is propaganda and I fail to see how it is allowed to function as a non-profit. Please, if you really consider yourself an environmentalist, look into this.

Melting ice cap, we got
Water pollution, we got
Coal soot in our cities, we got
Smoke from tobacco, we know
1 and 1 and 1 is 3
Do it for our children
Folk’s we’ve got a planet to get clean
Come together, renewable energys, lets go green!

Mr. Kennedy’s video is under the video player program tab: Keynotes

http://www.solarpowerinternational.com/conference/video/

http://www.solarpowerinternational.com/conference/video/

I mentioned Barnes and Nobel Book store. You can go there and find several magazines with home instalations, good success stories and horror stories. I love the fact that some actually tell what happen wrong with their instalation so others don’t make the same mistake. There might be magazine title like ECO Magazine, ot Solar Today. There might even be up to date magazine title like Green Energy, or Solar Home. When theres a craze or trend the publishers get busy printing magazines to fit the bill.

Most solar and photovolteic panels are made from silicon. Years ago there were more manufacturers in the USA making silicon glass to make silicon wafers for the semiconductor and chip industry. Companies like Corning that made silicon glass for fiber optics. The cost comes down as more companies compete. So if you start planing your project now, three months or six months from now when you are ready to install the price will come down.

By then utility companies will be offering solar packages where they deduct your optional lease purchase payments for the units from your monthly payment. They keep the energy tax credits and apply it to paying off your system. Surplus energy that feeds back to the grid will also reduce the balance. In a few years there will be more companies offering simular deals.

This will play out just like the cable industry. Back in the late 70’s the cable bill was $15.00 per month and would go up every few months as technology changed and in order for the company to offer better programing and newer equiptment they had to pass the cost on the consummer. We are witnessing a paradyne shift that will change the way we consume and produce energy. I was recently looking up some companies that I knew was into high tech products for consumers Johnson Controls and Corning, are already busy working Green Technology.

Are you ready for some football? There should be more announcements from big corporations. That are eagerly sitting on the sidelines with big bucks. Ready to make major investments in solar to lower cost. That will move the chains!