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We really have the most beautiful planet in our solar system. None other can sustain life like we know it. None other has blue water and white clouds covering colorful landmasses filled with thriving, beautiful, living things like human beings.
If we are serious about moving toward energy independence in a cost-effective way, we should invest in solar energy. If we are serious about cutting air and water pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should invest in solar energy.
To settle space, we will have to develop the ability to harvest and utilize the resources of the solar system, such as ores, ice, and the rays of the sun itself at levels of efficiency that will transform our relationship to our own planet Earth.
We are already witnessing a transformation in the U.S. economy to increased production of lower carbon energy through fuel switching to natural gas and expansion of wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable non-carbon intensive energy sources.
I know that I derive the same kind of spiritual fulfillment from what I do, being a planetary scientist, seeing our exploration of the solar system come to fruition. I get such a spiritual high from it that I don't even see the need for religion.
Then, I realized that there is an indigenous presence in the Solar System. It's us. So, then, I got to wondering what would happen if a more technologically advanced society moved next door to us, the way we moved next door to the American Indians.
I live out of my van, which gives me a first-hand appreciation for power and lighting. A few years ago, I rebuilt the interior of my van to include solar panels and a battery that powers LEDs for lighting and allows me to charge my phone and laptop.
If China is helping its domestic industries charge an artificially low price for solar panels and other environmental goods, then China is violating international trade rules that it agreed to when it became a member of the World Trade Organization.
One thing that I find very unmotivating is the kind of Plan B argument: when Earth gets destroyed, you want to be somewhere else. That doesn't work for me. We have sent robotic probes now to every place in the solar system, and this is the best one.
For example, a breakthrough in better batteries could supplant hydrogen. Better solar cells could replace or win out in this race to the fuel of the future. Those, I see, as the three big competitors: hydrogen, solar cells and then better batteries.
The planet Earth, though not threatened with destruction by man-made global warming, is by no means indestructible. There are many unpredictable events within our solar system, and still more outside it, that could make Earth uninhabitable by humans.
Venus and Mars are our next of kin: they are the two most Earth-like planets that we know about. They're the only two other very Earth-like planets in our solar system, meaning they orbit close to the sun; they have rocky surfaces and thin atmospheres.
You beat China by outcompeting them, by dominating the new technologies: wind, solar, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing. We should be reinvesting back in the United States and beating them on the economic playing field.
I hope that vigorous space exploration continues and that humankind will have a space station that resides between Earth and the moon. Outside the gravitational field of Earth, we could launch robotic spacecraft to other destinations in our solar system.
Estimates are that at least 70 per cent of all stars are accompanied by planets, and since the latter can occur in systems rather than as individuals (think of our own solar system), the number of planets in the Milky Way galaxy is of order one trillion.
Life is extremely resilient once it takes hold, but it requires rich chemistry, large energy sources, and stability, right from the beginning. The comparative planetology of our solar system makes it seem like those initial conditions are hard to come by.
I've been told that I have a lot of energy. The secret is that I use renewable resources. Some days I'm solar powered. Some days I'm wind powered. And some people in this room might think I'm hybrid gas-powered. You'll just have to guess which it is today.
I ride my bike for transportation a great deal - occasionally I ride it for fun. But I also have a generator bike that's hooked up to my solar battery pack, so if I ride 15 minutes hard on my bike, that's enough energy to toast toast, or power my computer.
We're leading a fundamental shift from centralized energy to distributed energy. Energy will go in that direction, just like mainframe computers went to client servers, then to the Internet. I believe in solar, and the macro trends are just too undeniable.
As far as I'm concerned, Enceladus has become the go-to place in our solar system for issues bearing on extraterrestrial life. It's a great place to examine extraterrestrial organic chemistry that is water-based and, therefore, like biotic chemistry on Earth.
Since Sunrun introduced solar as a service in 2007, it has become the preferred way for consumers to go solar in the nation's top solar markets. Sunrun has deployed more than $2 billion in solar systems and has raised more than $300 million in equity capital.
There are thousands of asteroids whose orbit in the Solar System crosses that of Earth. And we have a little acronym for them - NEOs: near Earth objects. And our biggest goal is to try to catalogue them, so we know in advance if one is going to put us at risk.
Of all the planets apart from Earth in our solar system, Mars is the most hospitable. Yeah. Right. Better keep my visit short. And yet, despite the discomfort, the danger, I love it here. I love coming back for these imaginary vacations. The sights are amazing.
I read 'The High Frontier' in high school. I read it multiple times, and I was already primed. As soon as I read it, it made sense to me. It seemed very clear that planetary surfaces were not the right place for an expanding civilization inside our solar system.
There's a big difference between needs and requirements for grid-based electricity versus those for distributed rural homes or remote locations, or even rooftop solar, where photovoltaics do OK. The more economical a technology is, the faster we'll see adoption.
All devices should just sip power and be charged like a calculator is, with a small solar cell. No power adaptors. It's easy to put a solar cell into a device, but it's not powerful enough to drive today's cell phones or laptops. They need too much power to run.
Likewise, with solar, especially here in California, we're discovering that the 80 solar farm schemes that are going forward want to basically bulldoze 1,000 sq. mi. of southern California desert. Well, as an environmentalist, we would rather that didn't happen.
In days gone by, scientists would speak solemnly about our solar system's 'habitable zone' - a theoretical region extending from Venus to Mars, but perhaps not encompassing either, where a planet would be the right temperature to have liquid water on its surface.
Scientists will eventually stop flailing around with solar power and focus their efforts on harnessing the only truly unlimited source of energy on the planet: stupidity. I predict that in the future, scientists will learn how to convert stupidity into clean fuel.
Look at countries like China, they are determined to dominate all clean technology areas, putting lots of money into wind, solar, electric vehicles and battery storage. America's political impotence, caused by their terrible partisanship, will see them left behind.
I know coal is dirty, but that's all we got. So as much as I'd love to have clean energy - solar panels everywhere - right now, all we have is coal. The people I love, and the people that I grew up with, that's their livelihood, and I don't want to see them starve.
The source of all the energy is the sun. The big challenge is, how do you use all of that energy? Solar power has to fascinate you. There have been strides to get the costs down, and if this will work, you have to get costs down so it is competitive with fossil fuels.
You know, one of the great things about most renewable technologies - not every technology, but many of them - is the jobs have to be local. When you're talking about a power plant and power generation using solar thermal technology, the jobs will be where the plant is.
We have an ideal location for a couple of organic wineries on the island. But the reintroduction of commercial agriculture to Lanai is 100% dependent upon increasing the available water on the island. So we're going to use solar energy to convert seawater to fresh water.
Titan is the one place in our solar system whose geographical and atmospheric diversity and complexity are rivaled only by the Earth's. It's very Earth-like, but it's also very different, which means we have a lot to learn as well as a prayer of understanding what we find.
In the future, I expect to see bitcoin mining in places where electricity is free or cheap. You could put solar array in the Arizona desert attached to bitcoin miners, and instead of trying to ship that electricity all over world, you could ship Bitcoin all over the world.
Ringside seats mean you hear the breaking of ribs, the splattered cartilage of what was once the boxer's nose, the dislocation of the jaw, the horrifying 'ugggh' that the boxer utters milliseconds after receiving a crushing left hook to the solar plexus or kidneys or head.
Sunlight and wind are inherently unreliable and energy-dilute. As such, adding solar panels and wind turbines to the grid in large quantities increases the cost of generating electricity, locks in fossil fuels, and increases the environmental footprint of energy production.
In terms of what I wanted to do before I got into politics, I was a businessman. I ran a company that makes and sells infrared night vision military technology and solar technology, so I wanted to grow that company and pursue groundbreaking technology in each of those areas.
Man is in a transition stage; he has 31 pairs of spinal nerves which keys him to the solar month, but the nerves in the so-called cauda-equina - literally horse-tail, at the end of our spinal cord, are still too undeveloped to act as avenues for the spiritual ray of the sun.
It's important to understand that oil and renewables do different things. Wind and solar are for power generation, so they don't replace oil. About 70% of all oil produced is used for transportation fuel. Renewables are good projects, but they don't get us off of foreign oil.
As Earth's climate changes, we can expect more destructive hurricanes. As sea level and surface temperatures rise, more solar energy is trapped in the atmosphere, revving up the hydrological cycle of evaporation and precipitation and sometimes manifesting in terrifying storms.
The truth is that transitioning to clean energy like wind and solar will create millions of new, good jobs that can't be outsourced, and spur economic growth - all while avoiding the inevitable, significant damages our economy will suffer should we keep building more pipelines.
No matter how you measure it, whether you measure the amount of mass or you measure the number of bodies, most of our solar system exists out beyond the orbits of the asteroids. So we could not have claimed to know our own solar system until Voyager had toured the giant planets.
Elon just presented a plan for settling the solar system in this century that is realistic and affordable. In my paper, 'A Pathway to a Thriving Commercial Space Economy' at IAC, I also laid out a path forward to a growing economy in space that produces new opportunities for all.
Dealing with environmental lawsuits and grassroots resistance is expensive. Industrial wind and solar developers have to hire lawyers, public relations specialists, and scientists willing to testify that this or that project poses only a modest threat to endangered birds and bats.
A utility can handle up to 20% of production from solar and that helps the grid because it produces electricity when needed. Solar power peaks in the middle of the day and that's also when air conditioning is running and businesses are operating, so power production matches usage.
A new idea - whether it's a way to collect solar energy more efficiently or a cheaper way to desalinate sea water or a new seed to boost the amount of food we can grow - can stretch the physical resources we have, or even multiply them. And the ideas themselves don't ever wear out.
My parents were/are straight-edge hippies. Mom roamed around gardening so we would have fresh food, and Dad was on wood-chopping duty to heat our passive solar home that they figured out how to design and build together. I was the kid with green peppers in my lunch, and I liked them!
We may regard the solar systems as separate sponges, swimming in a World of Divine Spirit, and thus it will be apparent that in order to travel from one solar system to another, it would be necessary to be able to function consciously in the highest vehicle of man, the Divine Spirit.