Continuation of Platform Position #25, Sec. C

Another recent rising star in the renewable energy galaxy is offshore wind turbines and the ubiquitous wave-surf and tide power. As usual, it takes a foreign country - Scotland - to take the lead over the U.S. whose potential in this arena is colossal because of our 12,378-mile coastline. The U.K. with only 7,700 miles of coastline is on schedule to hopefully replace 100,000 workers in their reserve-dwindling North Sea oil and gas industry.

To satisfy environmentalists, the plan will employ the largest wind turbines in 150-feet-deep water, 15 miles offshore. Each turbine blade measures about the length of a football field. In this one small area of coastal Scotland, the project will build a 200-turbine wind farm that is expected to provide enough electricity for a million people, one fifth of Scotland's total population. And it is renewable forever and will contribute to keeping the region's air pure for as long as people live there. No oil and no coal involved, partially because they don't have the U.S. Congress to interfere with the project.

Additionally, the U.K. anticipates it will generate approximately 20% of its energy needs from renewable sources. Assisting in making that goal attainable will be the new technology being developed to bring to fruition the harnessing of energy from tidal power and wave-surf power along their coastline. In just this one small area of Scotland there is so much potential that they're beginning to call it the Saudi Arabia of tidal power. Can you imagine what could be accomplished with this ocean-power technology on our long coastline? Jobs and more jobs with clean, sweet air. We'd be on our way to oil and coal independence with a vibrant economy and a strong resistance to global warming. Maybe with congress and the money-sucking two-party system out of the way, the people just may decide to ax the current financial subsidies to "ailing" Big Oil, and use those funds to provide interest-free loans to entrepreneurs who would just love to start up renewable-energy companies. We can accomplish that with our Direct Democracy Platform Issue #3. (See our Website Flowers4Prez for more details)

Another sector of renewable energy whose geological life and renew ability is eternal, but gets no mention from the presidential candidates, is geothermal power. In a current study at MIT the report concluded that geothermal energy and its peak performance time would be almost always (24/7).

One other report in the McClatchy Newspapers indicated that just one portion of the Cascades of Oregon has enough geothermal potential to produce 1000 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to that from a large nuclear-power plant (without the danger of leaking plutonium.) The same story referred to Nevada's known potential for becoming the Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy.

Can we conclude that geothermal energy can produce thousands of new jobs and more clean air? You bet! So where are our presidential candidates on this vast renewable-energy potential! Apparently they feel there's more job creation and clean-air potential in issuing no-medication band aide welfare checks.

In an article published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Tom Werner and Matt Cheney, the writers come up with some astounding numbers. They claim Nevada alone has 100,000 megawatts of potential solar resources just waiting to be tapped and converted into renewable and affordable energy. (10,000 megawatts is equivalent to power provided by one large nuclear-power plant) That's enough energy to power 20 million households. Nevada doesn't even have four million households. Yet Nevada politicians are bringing in more coal plants!

(To be continued)