Library Footage. Interview with New Mexico Politician

The port of these alternative energies, which would create a mixture and a diversity, which would be strength for the nation. If the Arabs cut off our oil, why all our military bases could be on solar, or at least enough so that their services are not interrupted and we're not so vulnerable, Congress asked the military, the DOD, to do this a few years ago, and so there has been a certain amount of solar equipment put in our military bases and with the idea of creating more diverse energy resource for the military and not making them so vulnerable to cut off fossil fuels. But this has been going very slowly and a lot of the solar equipment they put in was active equipment that has had problems and so the record there isn't very good. But the more progressive energy companies do have a diversified approach, you know, they're

not only into solar, they're into some number, into wind energy, they're in looking at geothermal, perhaps oil, shale production and so on. So I think that diversifying is a very healthy thing for any economy. And so by the time that we really, if we continue to support solar now, you're saying by the time that we're going to need for it to step in and full swing and take over some areas that are for supplies are depleting, by then it will have had enough time through research and development to iron out the kinks, right? Well, it's true that any new industry historically takes about 20 years to make any significant impact in the economy and to become a viable industry. Solar energy is really only about 10 years old in the United States and it's still an

infant industry that's still very fragile and needs quite a bit of support to grow and be a viable contributor to the nation's energy supply. I would think really by the year 2000, the solar industry might begin to make a few percent contribution to the national energy supply. It's going to be always difficult to provide liquid fuels from solar for transportation. But certainly heating and cooling of buildings and even some industrial uses of energy can be supplied by solar. And it will take 20, 30 years to have any really significant contribution of solar energy in the nation's energy requirements.