Updated on
Summary
It was a moment in history, when the worlds largest solar boat, the Turanor PlanetSolar, docked at Cancun on Tuesday to witness the first major world climate conference since COP15 (Copenhagen, December 2009). The Turanor, built by Knierim Yacht Club in Kiel, Germany, is a multi-hulled vessel carrying a large array of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. The boat supports the activities of the four sailors traveling around the world to bring home a message of sustainable energy technology, especially in water travel. Today, the boat says, for perhaps the first time in history, we have the technology to build a sustainable civilization. This is also the message leaders are hoping to receive at Cancun, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP16, is attempting to arrive at a consensus on how nations will proceed to fight the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that threaten to warm the planet beyond habitation. A good first step and perhaps the only step needed in the immediate future would be to eliminate the burning of fossil fuels, both as sources of electricity and in transportation. But can we feasibly do that? The existing energy lobby says no that coal, oil and gas are the backbone of our energy and transportation infrastructure, and will remain so for at least several decades (perhaps even for the next 100 years). Is this necessarily true? In tiny Iceland, for example, where 73 percent of the generation mix is from renewables albeit geothermal rather than solar greenhouse gas emissions (per Gross Domestic Product, and per capita) are among the lowest in the world. Granted, Icelands population is also diminutive (318,200), but studies have already shown that installing solar PV on just 0.06 percent of Mexicos land would be enough to provide the entire country with electricity. Another study shows that a land area equal to 100 miles by 129 miles would power the entire United States, if the solar facilities were placed in areas of optimum solar insolation.We Americans could do that. We have the skills, we have the will, we even have the technology. We just have to make the mandate clear to our politicians.
