Connecting the World with Solar

by Colin Berkshire

We are in the telecommunications field. We can save the planet more effectively than nearly any other industry. Stop commuting. Stop business travel. Do things remotely and electronically. We’re are the forefront of saving the earth.

So we should really be on this case. It should be heavy in our thinking.

My guess is that we can sell telecommuting and unified communications more easily than cutting our beef consumption in half. (Cutting beef consumption in half would actually have a greater positive impact on earth, but that idea doesn’t have a lot of sizzle.)

There is one other answer: Solar power. It’s real. It works. It’s cost effective.

I’ll share this: According to a graduate thesis by Technical University of Braunschweig student Nadine May, the number of solar panels needed to supply the entire world’s energy needs would fill just 25,000 square miles – or an area only slightly larger than the state of West Virginia.

I think this is pretty amazing. An area 100 miles by 250 miles can POWER THE WHOLE EARTH.

The Sahara desert is 100 times larger than that. The Mohave desert is big enough.

I won’t pontificate on the political forces that kill solar. But never forget that solar can power everything, all of it, today, now. Our existing technology can do it cost effectively (and for far less than nuclear or coal power.)