Uninformed Critics (Often Pro-Nuke People) Attack Renewable Energy with Loud, Though Specious Arguments
I’m often called upon to defend renewable energy against its critics. Here are my words of rebuttal to Alex Cannara, a nuclear advocate who for some reason feels compelled to denigrate renewables at every opportunity. My remarks are in italics below each of his assertions.
• There’s no such thing as “renewable” energy. Remember conservation of energy? “Renewable” is a marketing term.
The word “renewable” doesn’t mean that we’re manufacturing energy from nothing, only that we’re taking it from sources that are virtually infinite and comparatively non-polluting. The sun will be shining in our sky for the next 7.59 billion years, continuously bestowing our planet with 6000 times more power than we are consuming right now. By contrast, since the dawn of industrialization, humankind has reduced the store of hydrocarbons in the Earth’s crust by over 50%. That resource depletion alone is scary, when you think about it, though that’s the very least of our concerns with fossil fuels. (more…)
Last Tuesday saw the passing of novelist E. L. Doctorow at age 84 (pictured). I had written about him a couple times, as I was always tickled by what he said one time about his writing routine: “Here’s how it goes: I’m up at the stroke of 10 or 10:30. I have breakfast and read the papers, and then it’s lunchtime. Then maybe a little nap after lunch and out to the gym, and before I know it, it’s time to have a drink.”
