A brief history of a carbon free technology that could produce enough electricity to replace coal. CSP was pioneered by US engineers in the late 19th century and lost out to oil and coal.
President Nixon asked Fred Morse whether solar energy made sense for America. His answer was “definitely yes”. Fred Morse went on to manage solar energy in the Department of Energy for Presidents Carter and Reagan until 1989 when the programs were dismantled. Today Morse is the senior adviser for US operations for the Spanish firm Abengoa. They operate in over 70 countries and specialize in solar and bio-energy. Abengoa is trying to build the world’s largest CSP plant near Phoenix, AZ. <http://www.abengoasolar.com/sites/solar/en/our_projects/usa/arizona/index.html> Coal and nuclear are lobbying hard to retain the lion’s share of loan guarantees in the new stimulus package. (> The interview with Morse was recorded on 2008-08-26 in San Francisco/ Washington DC by phone.)
NOTES:
Our foremost climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level – below 350 parts per million CO2 – lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
Hansen points out that policy devices such as emissions reduction targets and cap-and-trade schemes simply will not work because there is already too much CO2 in the air. Much of the carbon dioxide given off by Robert Stephenson’s “Rocket” locomotive in 1829 is still in the atmosphere. Around 20% will still be present in thousands of years. If carbon dioxide continues to be released, even at the reduced rates now proposed, the amounts that remain will continue to build up. With present-day levels already posing real dangers, today’s policies of emissions reduction and carbon trading represent merely a slightly slower road to climate apocalypse. The lesson, Hansen argues, is that the bulk of the Earth’s remaining fossil fuels must be left untouched.
Thanks to Ken Butti and John Perlin whose book: A Golden Thread describes 2500 years of solar architecture and technology. Also to my friend Alex Carlin who first made me aware of CSP – a technology that has been made to lose out against oil and coal for decades – and that now needs it’s day in the sun.
For a broadcast quality 29 minute self contained mp3 version click HERE
MORE INFO:
Harvey Wasserman: A $50 Billion nuke power bomb is dropping toward Obama’s stimulus package, January 31, 2009. (Wasserman was on Democracy Now! on this issue on Feb. 5.) <http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2009/1721>
James Hansen, NASA: Tell President Obama About Coal River Mountain
<http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2009/20090203_CoalRiverMountain.pdf>
Coal River Mountain is the site of an absurdity. I learned about Coal River Mountain from students at Virginia Tech last fall. They were concerned about Coal River Mountain, but at that time most of them were working to support Barack Obama. They assumed Barack Obama would not allow such outrages to continue. The issue at Coal River Mountain is whether the top of the mountain will be blown up, so that coal can be dredged out of it, or whether the mountain will be allowed to stand.
