Going green

Cris Moore’s My View (“To replace fossil fuels, it’s got to be all of the above,” Aug. 29) is spot on and very educational. He points out that the realities of moving to a completely green economy will be very expensive. In the discussion of adding all green renewables, this is virtually never addressed. We need to build a massive network for green renewables, and we will have to rely at first on fossil fuels, unfortunately, to make and build those systems. As green renewable energy ramps up, fossil fuel use can slide down. However, there is a point in which we will be using more fossil fuels to run the industries that produce and install solar panels (unless we export that carbon footprint to China), wind turbines and hydrogen from water. (Don’t be fooled by hydrogen from fossil fuels. It is not green nor renewable and has a large carbon footprint.)

There is no way around this aspect, and it’s hard to swallow. Our carbon footprint will essentially double and then decline as renewables provide domestic energy and the energy to reproduce the same systems. This will take a moonshot approach in scope. Hydrogen produced from electrolysis is the cleanest and best all-around option. It also can be created in a green process from treated sewage at no cost. The solids are useful also. Not only is the produced fuel, hydrogen, the cleanest, once all of the facilities are in place and running, surplus energy can be used to build the very facilities that produce them.

Brian O’Keefe Santa Fe