Editor,

Many thanks to Mr. Peter Goldstern (Solar power...21 July, 2009) for his technical advice, and innovative ideas for renewable energy sources for Tonga's future.

His quotes from 1997 Nobel Prize winner (physicist, and U.S. energy secretary) Dr. Steven Chu, for example, are still theories more suitable for laboratory studies, but does very little in the real world where jobs are needed more than expensive experiments. Let's face the fact that Dr. Chu has not invented anything as a major technological advancement such as the combustion engine, jet airplanes, electricity, X-ray, etc.

In a recent June 22 interview with National Geographic magazine, Dr. Chu criticized the progress in corn ethanol in recent years, and the dirty use of coal-based energy sources. He favors burning grasses, new generation of solar power technology, and recycle bio-wastes, including fighting the war on global warming.

While coal technology is a threat to the environment, coal supply is more abundant than any other natural energy sources. Why not focus on refining coal technology? And while it is politically correct to ride the anti-global warming bandwagon, 700 international scientists proclaimed last March that the global warming claim is a scare tactic by do-gooders like Dr. Chu.

Econimist Dr. Walter E. Williams (George Mason University) wrote July 15 that "about 31,500 American scientists, including 9,029 with Ph.D.'s, have signed a petition that in part reads: There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." In fact the Earth has been cooling off for 10 years.

Mr. Goldstern and Dr. Chu however, are correct to point out that new energy technologies like solar power may perhaps be commercially impractical than conventional power plants. Why not improve the technology of existing energy resources that we have plenty of supply?

Tonga needs more innovative ideas to create jobs. Trade of locally grown and produced fruits and crops is the lifeline of the country's economy. Encouraging exports creates more jobs, generate value in the economy, and financial activities grow exponentially.

Sione A. Mokofisi

samokofisi [at] hotmail [dot] com (samokofisi [at] hotmail [dot] com>/a> )