The International Energy Association, in their World Energy Outlook for 2010, says Peak Oil has already happened.

If you don’t have a good grasp on what Peak Oil is – or even if you do – here’s a great video for you to watch. It’s one that puts Peak Oil into context very nicely.

This video is just one chapter of a series of videos making up The Crash Course by Chris Martenson, and I highly recommend the whole series. They are available to watch on YouTube.

Watch this video, and then know that here on the Big Island we have the possibility of using geothermal as our source of “base power.” It is cheap, proven technology and easy on the environment. And we have it in abundance here.

Chris Martenson is no fan of hydrogen because he assumes hydrogen will come from depleting sources of input – but cheap electricity from geothermal is an exception. We can make hydrogen using cheap “off peak” electricity and run the electricity through water to get the hydrogen. We can use the hydrogen as is.

Or we can combine it with nitrogen from air to make NH3, which is more efficient an energy carrier than H2 by 30 percent.

Air, water and geothermal are all here on the Big Island in abundance. The less we depend on importing energy, the better we will make it for future generations.