Energy Solutions
I grow weary of the two sides of this issue. On the one hand you have the rabid “global warming/climate change/next ice age” community that has been declaring a national ecological emergency since the 1970’s. Doubt me? In the 70’s scientists were certain we were heading to another ice age. In the late 80s and early 90’s they decided that off kilter and so the new craze became global warming. Unable to take the fact that global temperatures didn’t seem to quite match their predictions they changed it to climate change to include an all encompassing range of geological phenomena that they weren’t able to explain in the way they had planned. Sounds like a group fixated on blaming mankind for everything…
But the coin of crazy isn’t one sided…for this point there is naturally a counterpoint that is equally stupid:
On this side we have a group dead set on not only proving that we have nothing to do with what the loonies in the ice/warming/change community but that nature has been changing the climate for years and we have no effect on it whatsoever. This group seems to be relatively indifferent or willing to ignore the fact that air quality in major population centers, while improved over the early 20th century, still pretty much sucks. Air Quality alerts are the buzzword of the day and a cursory evaluation of certain drilling mishaps makes it pretty clear that while we aren’t the only variable affecting the environment we do have an impact. Of course this same group seems to worship the ground that coal walks on, so to speak, and gets rather belligerent whenever the idea of getting away from coal comes up. Not so much because they don’t think anything else could work but rather because they are from coal mining towns and don’t want to see their livelihoods vanish. I suspect this is a relatively noble goal, however given the nightmares that we are always told of coal mining I am rather surprised at that.
I admit I find much of geological history supporting the side that claims we are not the major cause of any kind of climate event. Considering the planet has gone through warming and cooling cycles long before we so much had invented the wheel or the White Castle to contribute to carbon/methane emissions I find myself leaning toward that camp. Especially considering the inherent inaccuracy in the predictions of the local weatherman for the upcoming week makes me less likely to trust long term analysis of similar issues. Man is incapable of fully comprehending a natural system empirically; life is inherent system of unpredictability. It simply is an impossibility. Considering we have only been capable of conscious thought for a little over a few thousand years and our ability to measure weather changes is but an eyeblink of that time frame I think our sampling size is a tad small. Alas, this is not where I planned to go.
Both sides of this insipid coin offer solutions that are really not practical. In a world where our energy needs are ever growing it is illogical to cut ourselves off at the knee to use the solutions espoused by the hippie group. Wind and solar power aren’t going to cut it; period. The current battery technology can’t cope with the charge/discharge requirements of these methods of power generation since they are incapable of providing controllable amounts of power during peak hours. On top of that no one really seems to have done any studies on long term effects of wind farms. I mean if my Sable is causing the polar bears to lose their glaciers then how logical is it to assume that acres of massive wind turbines will not affect bird migrations, insect migrations, weather patterns or even plant pollination that needs the wind? Not particularly logical if you ask me. So if it ISN’T cost effective and it has unknown consequences then why push it? On top of that we have this same group pushing for ethanol fueled vehicles; which is all well and good if you want food prices to skyrocket. Which they have. On top of that Ethanol is not much better as far as the emissions of the element with an atomic number of 6. Furthermore we also don’t get quite the yield you would want in order to wean us off of that other intoxicating liquid (oil, not alcohol). We could use every bit of arable land in the U.S. for fuel crop production and still barely make a dent in our consumption of the other black drink (again oil not coffee). So in short we would starve and do little to nothing to supposedly solve the problem we think our evil cars are producing.
On the other hand we have the “drill baby drill” group. While the supply of crude is important for transportation and numerous other products we haven’t built any new refineries recently so we will be faced with a ridiculous bottleneck even if we increase the supplies of oil dramatically. Of course the potential for problems here is all over the news so I shan’t mention it here. However it also has certain enriching qualities for a region of the world that isn’t particularly happy with us right now. Any chance we have to lessen their funding I am willing to take personally but at the same time we can’t operate under the assumption that our own reserves could fill the gap long term. To the power generation end of things this group is pretty fond of the coal burning plants we use. I admit they are convenient and do a great job of powering the computer I am currently typing this on; it has its own problems. Smog, which regardless of environmentalism, is pretty shitty for anyone with respiratory problems. On top of that we have the miners who have suffered pretty heavily over the years. Admittedly I am not up to speed on the current state of the coal miners in the eastern part of my Bluegrass state nor am I up to speed on the conditions of the coal miners in the untamed savage lands of West Virginia. I can only hope they have replaced the canary over in the state who exalted a KKK member to senator since the 50’s.
So I have talked about how full of shit everyone else is and offered nothing of my own. At this point I am sure that most people reading this will probably have stopped well before they reached this part. Now I offer my solutions:
A) Power Generation
It is pretty clear at this point that neither option is the best option so far in regards to power generation. One is too inconsistent and the other is too dirty. Well there is another option, in this case the nuclear option. Nuclear energy from 1969-1996 was actually kinder to the environment and caused the fewest deaths on average. On top of that it is clean and generates absurd amounts of energy. Even better is the fact that there is reactor technology that currently exists that can use waste from previous reactors as fuel. There is also a type of reactor out there that doesn’t even use compressed steam, which eliminates one of the biggest safety hazards in nuclear power generation. Pebble Bed Modular reactors use small spheres (pebbles) of graphite to encase the fissionable material and also serve to seal/protect them. No steam to operate the turbines thus removing one potential area for damage and radiation leaks. The reactors are designed to run at high temperatures surrounded by an inert gas such as Helium or Nitrogen which removes the possibility of explosion due to the pressure of steam. Additionally if left alone by engineers the plant itself will go into an idle temperature. So while the control rods designed to slow/halt a reaction could still be there just in case of catastrophe they aren’t the only safety feature. The inert gas does not change phases (liquid to gas) so there is no concern of potential damage there either. It starts and stays a gas. Another advantage is the fact that old coal plants could be converted into modular pebble bed reactors, saving on building costs and integration into the existing power grids.
B) Transportation
We really need to face the fact that until an economically viable means of portable energy production exists there is nothing out there that has quite the power to weight ratio of fossil fuels. As such we aren’t going to wean ourselves off of them until something else is as good or close to as good. The problem is though that the entire world needs the same stuff and since we are largely at the whim of OPEC they have us testicularly bound so to speak. Drilling at home is a good way to alleviate such things but I have another idea. If the ideas and concepts that I illustrated in part A end up in effect then we find ourselves with a surplus of coal and a bunch of coal miners out of a job. Don’t get me wrong, I know their job is a dangerous one and really sucks for the respiratory system but given the economic climate (ironic choice of words eh?) we really don’t want any further unemployment if it can be avoided. As such I propose we start to use the excess coal in Coal Liquefaction plants to convert the coal into useable fuel for our cars and other vehicles. This serves as a sufficient stop-gap while we research a truly capable fuel source for the future. Frankly it is the only option other than continual dependence on a part of the world in which our funds could be channeled to other, less savory, individuals.
If we have problems with excess carbon in the atmosphere then planting more trees would be a good place to start since plants, you know, kind of use CO₂ in their photosynthetic process and release O₂ in return. In fact I seem to recall seeing recently, somewhere, that certain rainforests and other forests are growing back faster than anticipated and the amount of carbon in the air is actually less than predicted by climate change/global warming/ice age folks. This is yet another instance of man’s inability to effectively predict nature.
Such simple and practical solutions are well within our grasp at this moment, yet we do not reach out to them.
Sources:
http://gabe.web.psi.ch/pdfs/PSI_Report/ENSAD98.pdf -This one cannot be posted as a link, so I just posted the text. If I try to post it as a link LJ says my entry is too large. Feel free to copy and past to your address bar if you want to double check me.
Paul Scherrer Institut, November 1998, Severe Accidents in the Energy Sector
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction
The Wikipedia link is more for the link to its parent sources than the page itself.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-1,00.html