President Obama recently visited Iowa to push for an extension of the Production Tax Credit for wind energy. I was reminded of America's wealth of resources and innovative minds that can secure our nation's safety and competiveness for the rest of this century. As a combat veteran, I am trained to also consider the security risks of not embracing a new and more effective way forward. Where our energy sources are concerned, those risks are higher than you might think.
During my time serving in Iraq, I experienced first-hand how troops are forced to expose themselves to danger in order to replenish their fuel supply. And recent statistics show that for every 24 convoys that set out in Afghanistan, a soldier is killed or injured. The threat back home certainly isn't as immediate, but our collective addiction to fossil fuels is keeping true independence, freedom and security just out of our reach.
The key to breaking free from that dependence lies in policies like the Production Tax Credit (PTC), which has helped wind energy become the second-fastest growing source of power in the U.S. That growth translates into jobs. In fact, the wind industry's share of American jobs is growing too. Sixty percent of a wind turbine's components are now produced in the United States, compared to 25 percent in 2005. That's in addition to all the installation and maintenance jobs.
But the PTC is at risk of expiring if Congress doesn't act to extend it. While Congress drags its heels, the military is already working to reduce its energy impact and increase the portion of its energy that comes from renewable sources.
In Arizona, for instance, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (AFB) is building a solar project big enough to meet 35 percent of the base's energy needs. In California, Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is in the process of installing a solar system that will meet 10 percent of the base's energy needs. In Barstow, where I was once stationed, the Marine Corps has solar and a 1.5 MW wind turbine that produces over 60 percent of the bases energy. Some bases, like Dyess AFB in Texas and Fairchild AFB in Washington, now produce 100 percent of their energy needs from wind or other renewable energy power sources.
Outside the military, the PTC policy is already helping to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and it's working for three reasons:
One: You get paid for the power you generate, after you generate it. If you don't produce any energy, you don't get a tax break.
Two: Wind energy is 90 percent cheaper than in 1980, 10 times greater than in 1992 and with more than 60 percent of the parts made in America the wind energy sector is projected to create 100,000 jobs over the next four years.
Three: It's not left; it's not right; it's forward. The Production Tax Credit already has bipartisan support, making it a viable policy for the future.
Without the Production Tax Credit, we won't just stand still, we'll go backwards, losing our competitive advantage as other countries forge ahead. Even the possibility of scrapping this policy has a dampening effect on private investors. In fact, many American manufacturers are already reducing their workforce due to lack of action in Congress.
There's no half way here. We're either all in or we're stalling. Our military knows how to commit to and execute a plan. Let our elected leaders apply that same focus and determination to their governing by supporting the extension of the Production Tax Credit, laying the foundation for a secure, independent America.
Mario Rivas served two deployments of Operation Iraqi Freedom in United States Marine Corps. He now serves in the California Army National Guard as a Captain and company commander. He is an alumnus of the Veterans Leadership Academy at the Truman National Security Project.
Robert Redford: Stop Public Handouts to Oil, Gas and Coal Companies, Now
I witnessed a windmill factory in an ecosystem; they might as well have dropped a bomb on that ecosystem. Nothing could derive a living from that ecosystem. They halted the construction of a dead solar panel field in California because it was killing a protected fox, a strand in the web of all life.
Solar is great, if incorporated where people live, like on rooftops, buildings, parking lots, shopping malls, along freeways, etc., but killing ecosystems for bird and bat killing windmills, makes American and Earth about as unsafe as it gets. We have destroyed 43% of Earth's ecosystems with "corn fields and parking lots". Ecosystems not only provide mankind with his natural resources, they furnish mankind with each and every reason he breathes. Ecosystems are the living, life giving of the Earth, like oxygen, the atmosphere, the climate and the biosphere. While terrestrial ecosystems represent only 30% of the Earth's surface, they support the vast majority of all life, including man's.
Ecologically literate scientists maintain, man is "suicidal" when he kills ecosystems, period! Kill the planet for alternative energies?
Why not resort to solar on every building in America instead of entombing the life giving of Earth?
Also, what sits on the surface of the Earth impacts climate. And, they've discovered windmills heat up the climate.
Rooftop and parking lot solar, and waste bio fuels, with efficiency and electric commuter hybrids give a complete solution with minimal damage to the envelopment, and a whole lot better than fossils and nukes. Ir's carbon negative with the char burial of waste bio mass.
We shouldn't be deforesting the planet for the alternatives because listed as a natural ecosystem service is, "climate regulation and moderation". Science has many examples of disturbing the native plants in ecosystems as heating up the climate. When they plowed the Great Plains grassland ecosystem for agriculture that climate grew hotter. Along the Mexico and our border, both sharing the same ecosystem, Mexico introduced cattle to their side of the border. The cattle ate some of the plant biodiversity, and their side of the border's climate got hotter.
Even Plato, who witnessed a forest disappear, noted that the springs dried up, and the sky was then opened up to the heat of the sun. Also plants and trees, exhale cooling water vapor that cools the leaves, the soil and the surrounding area.
`Supporting the troops', by being part of the solution, rather than tooling around suburban Texas in a big SUV with a yellow ribbon on it, being part of the problem.