Making a positive difference

In 1989 a most unnatural disaster occurred in the Prince William Sound of Alaska. Something so devastating and terrible that even 30 years later the damage done has never been fully corrected.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a manmade disaster that occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

The Exxon Valdez oil covered 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline and killed hundreds of thousands of seabirds, otters, seals and whales. It also killed billions of fish eggs. The oil slick destroyed the nearby ecosystem and it took with it with the livelihoods of the people who depended on that ecosystem.

The oil in this tanker was headed to a port in Long Beach, California and then on to a power plant to be burned which creates air pollution.

The energy from that oil would have been converted into electricity with the help of a steam turbine. All this so that I could have lights and everything else I expect to work on electricity. This realization did not sit well with me.

I was heartbroken by this event and it caused me to wonder if there was a safer, cleaner and less destructive way to make electricity. This is why I am a solar energy advocate.

This single event is why I went back to college and studied engineering so that I could make a positive difference in the way we use energy. I want to encourage people to use clean renewable energy and I want to educate children about how it works.

This is why I wrote Eddy the Electron Goes Solar.