Finally, someone else who is thinking clearly about energy, water, and climate. Casey Handmer writes about photovoltaic solar as the way out of the environmental mess we’re in.

Handmer is really good at backing up his ideas and opinions with facts and trends from reliable sources. That doesn’t make the idea a buildable design, but it tends to increase one’s confidence in it’s feasibility.

He’s landed on some of the big ideas I’ve been pushing – PV farms powering desal plants to provide water for the western US. In addition, he’s touting the big idea of turning today’s energy economy upside down via a LOT of PV:

One of these ways has produced the cheapest electricity ever. Electricity so cheap that in an ever growing number of markets it now makes more sense to turn solar electricity into hydrocarbons, than to burn hydrocarbons to make electricity

His arguments are compelling. And he’s gone for the trifecta of a process where not only do we stop burning hydrocarbons to create electricity, we extract C02 from the atmosphere as part of the process.

If I were just a bit younger I’d join his company – this is a vision for the future I can get behind. I’ll look into how I can help makes those ideas a near(er)-term reality. My grandsons’ future needs some help.

Pro tip – invest in PV panel production companies. They’re going to be crazy busy if this future takes hold.