To Achieve a Sustainable Approach to Energy We Need a Plan
In a discussion I had yesterday with an old friend and long-time 2GreenEnergy subscriber, I was reminded of how outrageous it is that the United States has no energy policy. Is it really any wonder we’re making such dreadfully slow progress in the direction of a sustainable approach to energy, considering that we don’t know where we’re going?
What’s the matter with asking our leaders to chart out the next few decades, and putting a stick in the ground re: our phasing out of fossil fuels? Where do we want to be in three years? 30? Isn’t that what leaders do, i.e., lead?
When you listen to our great energy pundits (e.g., Amory Lovins) present, this subject is 99% of the presentation, i.e., how, exactly, it is possible to bring together energy conservation, efficiency in its dozens of forms, and the different flavors of renewables, each with its steadily rising effectiveness and falling cost curve – all flowing together to eliminate fossil fuels over the coming few decades. I’ve met Lovins a couple of times after talks he’s given, and trust me, he’s pretty convincing. What’s the problem with adopting some sort of strategy along these lines?
Of course, we may not hit every target along the way; personally, I won’t be upset if we meet occasional setbacks. In my estimation, it’s far better to deal with failure and make mid-course corrections than not to try at all.
I’ll close with this snappy little discussion that Lewis Carroll crafted for Alice while she was in Wonderland:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
We’re amused at this clever absurdity, but this is precisely what we’re doing with our energy policy.
Google “US superior energy performance”.
I personal have come to realize the leaders that we need to influence and support are OURSELVES. Put solar on your home, buy fuel efficient cars, shop with local farmers for as much of your food as possible, change your habits and make sure you are not supporting the money streams that keep alive the wasteful and petroleum based system. Making the changes in my life, my neighborhood and my community will send the loudest message possible. Trying to get my politicians to do anything is a waste of energy that could be spent getting my life headed where I want to go. They will listen and follow because they follow the money.
Craig. The appearance of vast and possibly inexhaustible amounts of harvestable natural gas is being transformative in the perceptions and reality of both energy and climate. Reducing C02 emissions by 50% strikes many as perhaps good enough. It is to be considered that, unless it reaches cost parity with current energy production ( and it is closing in on this ), non fossil fuel energy is not a priority worth any price. In reducing costs, the private sustainable energy community can become, rather than governmental fiat, the driver of the bus of energy destiny. There is risk, but also great reward, in private investment in alternative energy. Those with money continue to fund only the safest of financial risks. Faint heart ne’re won Fair Lady. So we depend on the government to grow corn for energy alcohol at net gain in carbon emissions, greater worldwide hunger, and fatter Iowa farmers and farm owners. But the next politically driven plan will no doubt be much better.
If you look at the Fortune 500, 3 of the top 5 are oil companies and 4 out of the top 10.
6 out of the top 10 sell mostly fossil-fuel-related products, ie including the auto manufacturers.
The status quo has some big allies with lots of $.
We must begin in earnest. The first step in achieving a sane energy policy for our nation is to ban, punish and prevent bribery in all its forms – from campaign contributions to revolving door job offers, and everything in between. Nothing will improve unless we get this done.
If cash continues to reign as king in our country, then we and our progeny can quite properly expect to increasingly suffer beneath the most viciously heartless greed and the most craven and self-serving cowardice imaginable.
To look at Natural Gas as the difference in climate change is ludicrous. Here in PA there is so much leakage of Natural Gas from bad wells and fissures in the rock that the levels of methane in the air have quadrupled. Since methane is 200 times worse than CO2, natural gas is worse than burning coal in the long run. They are finding in Texas that the life of the wells is going to be much shorter than they predicted, and their financing models did not account for that. Default on their financing may well be the next financial bubble that bursts.
If Fracking is so safe, why did they need wavers of the clean air and water acts?
I have heard of no reasonable reason for including toxic chemicals in the water mix pumped into the wells unless it is to dispose of for free what they would have to pay to dispose of any other way.
We can not count on our government to step in, it is the entrepreneurs of the green energy market that must lead us out of this mess.
If Congress was serious about energy policy then incentives for energy efficiency would not be allowed to expire.
We have to reconsider the political leadership. it is very observable that they do not Lead in the definition we all expect is is more in similarity to the definition of a heavy metal identified on the periodic table of the elements as PB They make good shielding for nuclear power reactors, but the directing of overall activities of the country they have certainly blotched…
The kind of direction we need here cannot be expected from the vested interests that are presently in control of the situation. As has so often been proven – and has been uniquely possible, and directly allowed for, in democratic republics – it remains the purview of government, as the arm of the whole people of the nation, to protect and defend the Public Commons, and achieve those noble goals that the market cannot or will not, for the health and well-being of the people (domestic tranquility, the general welfare and the blessings of Liberty, etc.). As the people of this nation, it is (and will always be) necessary for us to regain and maintain control over our sole avenue of defense against the predatory forces of greed that now and continually rise in our nation. No avenue but our own government is usable by us for that purpose.
It would seem that the vested interests control our gov’t to the point that we have no energy plan ..All I can think of is that crowd investing in the private sector my be the only way for the masses to get what we truly need
I have significant doubts – born of a knowledge of history – that the private sector can be substantially steered by the public’s conscious efforts toward the Common Good, when the bribed and bought government (and therefore the law and the courts), as well as the corporate media, are stacked so heavily in favor of the vested interests against which any private sector interest defending the Common good will necessarily compete. There is a long train of disruptive technologies that have been shelved, swept under the rug or buried entirely by the power of entrenched wealth. Regaining control of our government, through the elimination of the power of bribery, and transforming it into the arm of the whole people, is our only hope of regaining, preserving and defending the Public Commons.
If you really want a sustainable approach to energy you will have to choose LSP, it will,stop global warming, eliminate worldwide poverty and reduce your energy bill by 90%. So why is nobody mentioning it? Please visit http://www.lunarsolarpower.org and discover a whole new world of possibilities!
I urge you to check out the post I wrote on this and the comments. http://2greenenergy.com/2014/01/14/lunar-solar-power/.