Nearly all of the energy we use is produced by burning some kind of fuel, and virtually all of that fuel is carbon-based. Examples are petroleum, coal, natural gas, and bio-fuels (wood, ethanol, grass, manure, animal fat, etc.)

That combustion results in the combination of carbon and oxygen to produce carbon dioxide (CO₂) and carbon monoxide (CO).

If the fuel has a hydrogen component (and most do) then the hydrogen will combine with atmospheric elements and other fuel elements to form water (H₂O) and a number of acids.

The carbon monoxide will eventually be oxidized (by adding another oxygen atom) to form still more CO₂, and the acids will be washed from the atmosphere by rain.

Our carbon-based fuel supplies are limited. Worldwide energy consumption is increasing at an ever-faster pace. We need to find non-depletive ways to produce sufficient energy to meet demand before shortages produce worldwide political, economic, and humanitarian crises.

It is not enough to be able to claim that we have supplies of this fuel or that for a few hundred years. Such claims do not take into account the global nature of the problem, the accelerating rates of consumption, nor the fact that as the supplies dwindle the consequences of procrastinating on non-depletive solutions will be made unnecessarily severe.

We're dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than natural processes can remove it. Since carbon dioxide absorbs certain wavelengths of solar radiation (most notably in the infrared), this has the effect of capturing and retaining solar energy in the atmosphere. It's what's popularly called the "greenhouse effect", and appears to be the most significant cause of "global warming".

We already know some of what we need to do to move beyond carbon-based energy and we have a start on developing alternative energy sources. Hydro-electric power, for example, has been around for a long time. Geothermal-electric power has been proven to work well where feasible. Wind-electric power is coming into its own in many parts of the world.

These are what we have for large-scale (centralized) energy production - but we need to not limit our thinking to centralized production. There's also a need to pay attention to the details of the problem because there's much than can be done in the point-of-use (decentralized) context - and development of point-of-use energy sources will reduce the loading on the centralized sources.

Development of point-of-use solutions requires adopting a different way of thinking about the problems, because the solution process begins with the specific task to be accomplished and works backward, seeking the "best" path to an available (non-depletive, non-carbon based) supply of energy.

"Non-depletive, non-carbon based" in the context of currently employed technology, at first seems horribly restrictive - because it eliminates so many of the one-size-fits-all solutions we're using today, but (and this is important) it's also liberating when there's actually a surplus of energy available for the task.

Point-of-use energy solutions offer the additional advantages of being useful in areas currently lacking any kind of energy distribution network and where fuel is either prohibitively expensive or simply unavailable.

DeSoto Solar's "Zero-Carbon" program is an attempt to focus enterprise on developing these kinds of solutions. A first-class solar heating panel is already available and development is underway on solar-powered (non-electrical) pumps and solar-powered refrigeration/air-conditioning systems.

More later...