In a previous post, I urged anyone who would, to list his or her ideas on possible solutions to our energy problem. As I said, I believe the general public is a lot smarter than the elite media would have us believe. Unremarkable people have time and again come up with solutions to difficult problems, solutions that seem both inspired and common sense. Do the solution paths proposed by the “proper people” seem to be apolitical, best-efforts, to both get us through the near term and also on the road to energy independence?
For starters, it appears that the usual suspects have come up with a blanket naysaying technique, possibly to conserve their personal energy. No solution should be considered, they insist, if it would take longer than one of their approved time intervals: a maximum radio / TV sound byte; a House of Representatives term; a Presidential term; or a Senate term. I would love to see a solution that could be effected somewhere in the 30 seconds to six years time frame; but I have not yet heard any of the naysayers propose any quick solutions (or any solutions, for that matter).
Oil drilling is out, primarily because the first lemming said “it would take at least ten years to see any results”. The only drilling that might be permitted is in those places approved by the naysaying army: out of sight, out of mind, and out of any likely oil-reservoir areas. You would think that the proposals to drill in the U. S. depend on the naysayers’ personal money, or taxpayers’ money at the very least. But all drilling allowed will be done with private risk capital, just as it has always been done.
Nuclear power plants are out, for essentially the same reasons as oil drilling; it will take longer than the time required to build a hot dog stand. I, too, have had concerns, like many people, about the disposal of spent nuclear fuel rods; but current-technology nuclear power plants recycle the fuel, and bury nothing.
Generation of electricity from wind turbines is growing rapidly in the western half of my state. But I live in a sparsely-populated state, where there are few people to see the wind machines. Elsewhere, there is a growing swell of objections to the visual pollution or aural (if you’re very close) pollution the windmills create. Again, you would think that wind-powered generators are going to be put in peoples’ yards against their will, for all the naysayers’ roar.
Another emerging trend in my state is increased use of natural gas. All the power generation plants built in recent years burn natural gas (to run the turbines which turn the generators). Also, the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) to power bus and truck fleets, company vehicles, and private autos is growing rapidly. But there appears to be an insurmountable problem with natural gas outside of a few states like mine: gas wells are drilled with the same rigs used to drill oil wells. The naysayers do not want to let any drilling go forward (people needing water wells may also be left high and dry).
Low-sulfur coal, which is abundant in the U. S., should be a natural energy source around which we could rally. But, like any fossil fuel (or anything that burns), coal smoke includes carbon dioxide. I should think that developing significant improvements to the cost effectiveness of CO2 scrubbers would be among our national research priorities. However, the naysayers tell us that scientists cannot guarantee results within one of the approved time intervals, so coal is out too.
That brings us, via the process of elimination, to what must be the naysayers’ consensus solution to our energy problem: conservation of energy. How could any of us object to conserving energy, any more than we could object to conserving taxpayers’ money? Conservation does seem reasonable as a consensus solution for our energy cost and availability problem. However, government-mandated specific conservation measures might be a greater risk to us than any type of drilling—oil, gas, water or teeth. We saw the clumsy efforts of our government in reaction to the oil shock of 1973: a universal 55 miles per hour speed limit and the “thermostat police” (instead of vehicle efficiency standards for fuel burn at various operating speeds, or energy efficiency standards for business and residential structures). In your wildest dreams you probably couldn’t envision proposals more bizarre than our government might implement: one vehicle per family; 1.2 liter maximum displacement diesel engine for all vehicles; thermostats set no higher than 45 degrees in winter and no less than 95 in summer; cell phone recharging on alternate days only; et cetera. For the sake of argument, though, let’s assume that common sense would prevail after some number of years, and that we could all survive governmental blunders on the road toward more efficient and effective use of energy in the United States.
A conservation consensus would leave only one small concern to be addressed: how do we get from the here and now to the perfect world of the future? Perhaps the naysayers do have some ideas of how we are going to get from the near term, to where the longer-term solutions start to kick in. Maybe they know something I don’t about the status of controlled nuclear fusion; if unlimited energy is just on the horizon, I have no problem with leaving the billions and billions of barrels of United States oil in the ground forever. But first I have to hear this marvelous bridging solution, one which can be implemented within a politically correct time interval.
I am at the point where I want a straight answer from the naysayers: what is it that they fear about increasing our domestic energy supplies, starting now? Forget the “it won’t help in less than n years” nonsense! That’s not an answer; it’s an opinion, and it’s irrelevant in any case. Forget the preposterously vague “potential environmental disaster” evasion! Provide the public with specific, credible reasons for not leveraging our existing resources, using proven technology to get us across today’s gap, toward energy independence. Or get out of the way. Or tell us what your real agenda is, and let us debate it!
Tags: CNG, CO2 scrubbers, compressed natural gas, gas well drilling, low-sulfur coal, nuclear fusion, oil well drilling, wind turbines
