Tuesday, July 22, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.
When I read Clarence Lanzrath’s letter in Friday’s Las Vegas Sun — promoting coal burning, nuclear power and new oil well drilling — what crossed my mind was a line from former Vice President Al Gore’s most recent speech in Washington.
The sentence I thought of when Lanzrath wrote of “energy sources we know work” is this from Gore’s Thursday speech: We have a “tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately.”
Lanzrath’s arguments present old solutions that are threadbare and worn out.
In Gore’s view of the future of energy, he is making a challenge to the United States “to commit to producing 100 percent of electricity from renewable energy and truly carbon-free sources within 10 years.”
Within 10 years? Now that is thinking out of the box, and circumventing possible global disaster.
Lanzrath derides renewable energy developments as “ventures,” while Gore states global warming is a present danger from which, ultimately, “the future of human civilization is at stake.”
Something I find constantly refreshing is that Southern Nevada is most definitely not a realm of “old solutions” regarding the future of electricity. Many people probably do not realize that UNLV is rife with research advancements and scientific breakthroughs in many areas of renewable energy. In fact, on Aug. 20, UNLV will hold its 2008 Renewable Energy Symposium.
Also, the day before, Aug. 19, the university campus will be the site of the National Clean Energy Summit sponsored by UNLV, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Nevada U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.
Heading for the past is not going to get us where we need to be. As for me, I intend to be at UNLV on Aug. 19 and 20 to hear what is going on in the cutting-edge areas of clean, renewable energy.
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