Banner ad for calendar special

 

Renewable Local Energy

Send to friendSend to friendPrinter-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

I see Los Angeles county has a launched a new "solar mapping" website, www.lacounty.solarmap.org, that lets residents and business owners determine whether their properties would benefit from solar power. Now that seems to me to be the kind of renewable energy California needs, not electricity generated from trashed wilderness watersheds a thousand miles to the north.

Surely the most appropriate renewable energy for a region is the renewable energy that can be generated IN the region, from that region's resources. In other words, a bio-regional energy strategy would use locally available resources for local energy needs. This is the same as what should be happening, but isn't, with fibre -- you can make paper products out of a wide range of fibres, and the paper industry should be decentralised so that each bio-region is making paper from the fibre available in that region, instead of shipping dead trees all over the world.