I have a dream that in the not-too-distant future, Visy Tumut will spend around $100 m to expand our clean energy generation here and take in additional waste forest wood to generate clean renewable energy and sell it into the power grid.
The two most abundant forms of power on earth are solar and wind, and they're getting cheaper and cheaper.
My real baby is renewable energy. I feel like whoever starts to crack this nut is going to have a pretty clear shot at the White House. It's a $2 trillion business that America's being left out of.
In addition to hydropower, Oregon and the Northwest have pioneering companies leading the way in environmentally friendly energy technology.
Yet now the industrialized world is moving away from fossil fuels and moving towards renewable sources of energy. And because we have not invested so much into education, we don't have the technology and sometimes we don't even have the capital to buy this technology.
Even those who don't believe in climate change believe we should develop renewable energy. Americans get it: it's time. This is not controversial. It's actually right in the wheelhouse of American business.
Over the past two years, the Obama Administration and USDA have worked to build a foundation for sustainable economic growth in rural America. At the center of our vision is an effort to increase domestic production and use of renewable energy.
We're clearly coming to the end of the fossil fuel era. We have the technology to shift to renewable energy, we have the will of the people. The only thing that's keeping us back is the fossil fuel industry's hold on our political system. That's what we need to change.
...it is true that renewable energy is expensive and can't be done without public sector support, it is an important investment in the future.
A large-scale wind, water and solar energy system can reliably supply the world’s needs, significantly benefiting climate, air quality, water quality, ecology and energy security ... [T]he obstacles are primarily political, not technical.
We should be moving vigorously towards renewable energy. The technology of which is right here right now.
Some technologies don't pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. ... I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here.
