Energy answers in the wind, sun

Bradley Collins, the executive director of the American Solar Energy Society, linked the issues in an address before the City Club of Cleveland. Collins will be in town over the next few days for the society’s 36th annual conference at the Cleveland Convention Center.

The increasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil – about two-thirds of the oil consumed today is from other nations, many of whom are not friendly – is a standard battle cry of advocates of alternative-energy technologies such as biodiesel, ethanol and coal-to-liquid fuels. Collins incorporated their concerns into his argument that only by turning to large-scale solar and wind projects can the nation prepare for “climate instability” caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the coming oil shortages predicted by some geologists.

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