What is Green Energy and Why should We Care?

May 21, 2010

The ongoing disaster of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill falls right on the heels of Obama’s new law that open up coastlines to more drilling — the kind of offshore drilling that has been banned for the last 20 years. Even if you don’t believe in the concept of peak oil, when you see the satellite image of crude oil pouring out of an open hole in the ocean, you have to be curious about the options. So what are they, really?

First of all, let’s get a couple of popular red herrings out of the way.

Nuclear Power Isn’t Green

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think the worldwide commission on cleaning up Chernobyl really puts in it perspective. According to them, we’ve got a 40% chance of another Design Basis Accident (that’s nuke-speak for meltdown) in the next 40 years. Would you like one in your backyard? The Chernobyl nuclear plant (still not safely contained, btw) caused “untold suffering for millions of people.” Should we just go ahead with something that has this potential?

Even if your neighborhood nuke never goes critical, there is the small matter of waste disposal. Most people know that nuclear waste is the most toxic material ever created by man. Even kids know it takes thousands of years before the danger goes away. So what do we do with the nuclear waste we create from power plants and military projects? We put it in swimming pools. Yep, that’s pretty much it. We keep spent nuclear fuel rods in a swimming pool, usually nearby because, in all seriousness, who wants to transport the stuff?

Even the Federal Government shuttered their own Yucca Mountain storage facility. Not only could the facility never be made safe, getting the waste there would put hundreds of millions of Americans in front of potential nuclear waste accidents every day as trains and trucks carrying it crossed the country. Oops!

Ethanol Isn’t Green

Ethanol might be what the corn industry wants to sell us after we quit eating corn syrup, but it isn’t a great fuel source. Even if every acre of our fields were given over to ethanol, we could only make about 12% of our automobile fuel.

Because it’s hydroscopic, ethanol can’t be run in the nation’s petroleum pipelines and distribution system. Drivers and boaters already know what an ethanol mix does to their fuel lines. It would cost billions to convert our oil infrastructure to one that could run on ethanol, billions that could only come from huge tax credits and development projects funded with public money.

Ethanol production is inefficient. When the complete product lifecycle is taken into account, ethanol may produce more carbon emissions than it saves. It may even take more energy to produce than it creates. That’s not green! Besides, using a food source to power our cars hardly makes sense, especially given the present problems with the food supply in this country.

Hydrogen Isn’t (Necessarily) Green

I love hydrogen as much as the next guy. (Well, hydrogen vehicles sure look cool.) And with zero emissions, what’s not to like? Although hydrogen is everywhere, it must be separated and compressed into a tank to be used as fuel. That takes energy. If we make the hydrogen using dirty power, we haven’t saved the planet one bit. We’re just making a Jetson’s version of another consumptive energy system, one that depends on digging something up and burning it for power. A hydrogen infrastructure and a hydrogen economy are steps backward, not forward.

Getting Away From Consumption

Anything that makes us consume something cannot be green energy because we will never get out of the cycle of obtaining that something (at any cost) so we can burn more of it up. The economics of infrastructure-building are such that, once you build an entire society based on an energy source, it’s very difficult to change. Since we have to change soon, we should move to something non-consumptive at this juncture.

The energy business would prefer that we not move away from consumptive models. If nothing is consumed, there’s nothing to sell. Someone would need to sell power-making devices of course, but King Gilette would tell you all the money is in the refills. No matter how green their talk, today’s energy companies just want to replace one consumed energy source with another and they’ll do everything in their power to obfuscate that fact.

Are There Non-Consumptive Sources?

Yes! Of course. We have overlooked them on purpose. Let’s take the most obvious first.

It’s Hot Up There!

The sun produces in one hour all the energy we use on earth in one year. New solar fields are producing massive amounts of energy — enough to power cities and nations, just as we do now with oil. A successful solar field in Spain, for example, will expand next year to provide service to 600,000 people.

Solar power for city-wide electric service is a Very Big Deal and certainly seems completely obvious for the sparsely populated and sundrenched Florida Keys. Who would guess our local power plant on Stock Island burns fuel oil, brought in by ship? Yuck! New solar cell technologies make solar practical and economical in more places than ever.

The Ocean’s Version of Geothermal

Water is the other power source that’s all around us and doesn’t need to be consumed to be used. Oceanic Thermal Conversion is a revolutionary power concept that consumes nothing and produces green electricity along with free air conditioning and pure drinking water. Fortunately, it works best in warm coastal locations where those three things are very much in demand.

And speaking of geothermal, a new low temperature version makes that technology viable in more places than ever. Temperatures that exist near the earth’s surface almost everywhere are high enough to power turbines — if we build the plants to do it.

Back to the Buoy

Wave power is an age-old dream that could become reality. A promising new technique for making power from waves uses a simple array of buoys. It probably won’t be funded because it costs less than a war and won’t be made by Halliburton. Naw, I’m just being cynical.

What You Can Do?

If you’ve read this far, you’ve done the first part. Get informed and don’t buy the bullshit that energy companies are selling you. Talk about non-consumptive energy sources and steer your friends (and politicians) towards those solutions.

Since most of us aren’t involved in building power plants, we can only green our own homes. If you are involved in public energy policy, by all means, please do more than that!

The bottom line:

Demand, don’t suggest, that we create green energy solutions today.

After all, it’s your planet, too.

David Bethune

http://www.facebook.com/l/10759;macaroniowls.com

Here’s a Graphic of the damage the Recent Oil Spill

has and will cause:

Crude Awakening

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