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The True Cause Of The United States' Economic Downturn

Energy flows one direction and money flows in the other. In the modern world economy it is energy, not gold that gives paper money it's real value. Paper money is a trust certificate that says to both bearer and recipient : 'I am exchangeable for some amount of energy.' Everybody agrees to this principle, therefore paper money is valuable.

It is not just a coincidence that when the cost of energy was at it's recent all time low during the 1990's, the economy was booming. American paper money was more exchangeable for oil and other forms of energy than it is now. Because there is a serious developing worldwide energy shortage, primarily a shortage of oil, America is going to have to spends more and more of it's paper trust certificates for less and less energy from now on. Every American should think long and hard about this and understand that it is the high cost of energy that is tearing the economy to shreds.

The price of all energy has increased several times it's 2000 value because the world's economically developable oil reserves are shrinking at three percent a year. There is simply no way to reverse this trend, because most of the world's large oil fields have been found and the discovery rate of these types of reserves has been shrinking since 1963. Inexpensive oil has been, for the last hundred years, the country's most important energy source, but now it is beginning to run out. Because of this, the United States is just now entering a chronic economic decline, caused by the skyrocketing energy prices. If nothing is done to replace the disappearing, inexpensive oil and it must be done very quickly and on a truly massive scale, then the U.S. will go into terminal economic decline. America, take note! This is not hyperbole. These are the hard cold facts about the economic future of the United States of America.

Because energy is the bedrock of all modern economies, it stands to reason that founding our financial system on inexpensive, inexhaustible, and clean solar energy is the best coarse of action for the United States and the World. And we only have about 5 to 8 years in which to turn this into reality before the economic decline becomes the worlds worst depression.

Really big solar energy development, and as fast as possible, is the only real cure for the present economic downturn in the U.S. and the only safe and long term solution for the world's energy needs.

Solar panels that produce electricity are the permanent long term solution (over the next fifty years), but they are too expensive to be deployed on the required scale and in the limited time available to reverse the world's developing energy shortage.

The short term solution to our country's developing energy crisis is to build thousands of solar thermal power plants across the U.S. Solar thermal power plants can use the sun's light, to make steam, to power steam turbine generators, to produce electricity. The sun's light would replace the coal, oil, and gas that is presently being used to fire the power plants that now provide 80% of the electricity in the U.S.

Solar thermal power plants could be built profitably and quickly (within five years), almost anywhere in the U.S. They can produce heat, electricity, and hydrogen. Using sequestered CO2, and the hydrogen from these plants, methane (natural gas), and methanol (an excellent gasoline analog) can be produced in huge quantities. This would actually reverse global warming gas emissions, while providing all the transportation and industrial fuels needed.

Heating buildings and water requires fully one third of the energy used in the country. This can all be done inexpensively with low temperature solar energy at the points of use. Wind, hydro-electric, and ocean wave energy are all really tertiary forms of solar energy. Their development and wide spread use should also be increased as fast as practical.

Fully developing and deploying the needed manufacturing, construction, transportation and maintenance businesses for a mature solar energy industry in the United States would provide twenty to fifty million high paying, non-exportable jobs over the next ten to fifteen years and it would provide real security for our nation. And the U.S. economy would once more begin to boom as the country again, becomes a net energy exporter. Talk about real economic security!

With these things in mind, it is no surprise that Johnny-come-lately Venture Capitalist's have recently begun to put their money (Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Venture capitalists will largely direct their investments to the greentech ...) into developing the world's one true, practical, safe, clean and scalable alternative-energy source.

Truth be told, solar energy isn't just the most practical alternative energy source for the future, it's the only practical energy source for the future!