Points of Interest | Green Energy News

September 14, 2003 – Vol.8 No.25

POINTS OF INTEREST.

A weekly collection of websites worth visiting.

Now that President Bush has admitted that Saddam Hussein had no connection with the attacks of 9/11, and no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been found in Iraq, nor were there any WMD programs - Iraq was not a threat to the U.S. - then what was the war about? Direct U.S. access to oil and gas?

Possibly.

According to Matthew R. Simmons, who assisted in Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force, and has met with President Bush, there are those in Washington who are seriously concerned about fossil fuel depletion - natural gas in particular.

Simmons thoughts’ should be seriously considered. He is the founder, and now chairman, of Simmons and Company International Investment Banking and has spoken at length on the subject of depletion at the 2nd annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Natural Gas (ASPO). His speeches can be found at the Simmons and Company website http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/ (click Matthew R. Simmons, be sure to review the company client list as well), and read Revealing Statements from a Bush Insider about Peak Oil and Natural Gas Depletion at ASPO http://www.peakoil.net/

Xantrex has announced that its solar electric inverters were used in the construction of the Archipell, a solar powered catamaran used to tour the ecologically sensitive Galapagos Islands. The 18-passenger boat with its 20 solar panels and its clean, quiet electric drive was built in Ecuador and is considered a first for the shipbuilding industry there.

The operators of the Archipell don’t appear to have their own website, but some thoughtful participants in the Solarquest program were kind enough to post a number of photos of the stylish craft and its mechanical details in a website.

Solarquest is an effort to bring solar energy to underdeveloped areas for educational purposes. Xantrex offers a complete press release on the Archipell. http://www.galapagosolar.com/fotos (click A Tour Around San Cristobal) http://www.xantrex.com/ , http://www.solarquest.com/