Energy finally seems to be getting the attention it deserves. People are recognizing the rising demand around our planet, and many are talking about energy shortages as developing nations start utilizing more energy themselves. But the reality is that we are surrounded by an abundance of energy. The earth is truly blessed.
The mindset of energy shortage comes from a tunnel vision focus on fossil fuels. That limited focus is drying up supplies and poisoning our planet. What is needed instead is for developers to take off their blinders and wake up to the enormous supply of untapped energy that surrounds us. I am not talking metaphysics here. I am talking about natural energy.
Here's one example. Long range forecasters are predicting some critical fresh water needs in the future that current delivery systems cannot accommodate. Many areas are already feeling the strain. Obviously, more needs to be done with water reclamation. But additionally, many are calling for much more to be done with the desalination of seawater. A major obstacle to that has been the high energy demand of such operations. Imagine, though, a desalination plant that harnesses the local power of the tides, the wind, and the waves to generate the electricity required to operate and pump the water. The output of the plant might be somewhat variable, but it would take no energy from the grid. Instead, the facility takes the energy from its environment.
We need to get away from the all or nothing approach to supplying our electrical energy needs. There is an enormous amount of energy lost in transmission from a central location. Envision, instead, a community in which every building has roof shingles that not only perform the usual protective functions but also convert sunlight into electricity for use in that building. In most locations, this would not be enough to substitute for the electrical grid, but it could certainly supplement. If the building is making use of a subterranean heating and cooling system, the power to provide the air circulation could all be generated on site. (Google "subterranean heating and cooling" for more information.)
This sort of decentralization of power supply can make an enormous difference in parts of the developing world where the infrastructure for power delivery has not been put into place. In many respects, it is similar to the way in which cell phone service has reached many areas were there are still no telephone land lines. These countries will be able to modernize more quickly and with less investment in infrastructure with this type of technology. As a bonus, it will have less negative impact on the environment.
What we need now and in the future is more creative energy. Sometimes, we need new technologies. Sometimes we just need new applications of very old technologies. Either way, we'll be drawing upon the abundance of energy that already surrounds us.
That's Wade's two cents.
Wade Houston
July 3, 2008
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Monday, October 15, 2007
Beware The Quick Fix Energy Solution
In the United States we are rapidly coming to the understanding that we must have energy independence as soon as possible. We have already seen our foreign policy hijacked because of dependence on oil from abroad and face an ever worsening trade deficit besides. As more and more third world countries are industrializing, their energy demands are putting upward price pressure on scarce resources.
None of this was unforeseen. But we lacked the political will to do much about it until the situation became urgent. Maybe some of the blame can be placed on oil industry lobbyists; maybe not. But the situation has become increasingly difficult to simply dismiss as "the pessimistic forecasts of the chronic doom sayers".
The fact that we need energy independence as soon as possible (if not yesterday) has increased the likelihood that we will make some bad choices. We want the quick fixes. But we need to take some time to think through the consequences of those fixes.
Some want us to move into greater use of coal and its derivative, coal oil. We can do that. The United States has vast quantities of coal. It has been said that the U.S. is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil. That would certainly make us energy independent, and we already have the technology. The problem is that it would be an environmental catastrophe.
Traditional coal mining (digging caves in the ground) is dangerous to the miners. Mountain top removal is ugly and pollutes our streams and rivers. Burning coal releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide along with other pollutants. When it comes to fuel sources, you can hardly get more carbon based than coal. We could use coal to almost completely solve the problem of reliance on foreign sources for our energy. But by doing so we could destroy our fresh water supplies and further pollute our air while simultaneously hastening global warming.
Corn farmers want us to do more with converting corn to ethanol. We already have the technology to do this. Since corn is grown, it is a renewable resource. Burning ethanol does release some carbon dioxide, but carbon dioxide is absorbed from the air by the corn plants themselves. So it sort of cleans up after itself and becomes the perfect solution, right? Wrong!
Corn is useful for an amazing number of things. So many, in fact, it is a waste to burn it up. If you walked through your local grocery store and removed everything that had corn or a corn derivative in it, you would find the shelves rather barren. If you took away animals raised on corn products, much of the meat, eggs, and dairy would disappear. Obviously, anything that increases our demand for corn is going to cause the cost of a lot of other things to rise.
There are also the fuel expenditures in raising corn and getting the ethanol to market. Furthermore, it would require all the suitable agricultural land in the U.S. just to grow enough corn to produce the amount of ethanol required to replace our need for gasoline and diesel. There would be no farmland for anything else. However, as we diminish our population through starvation, we would find our energy needs going down.
I have named the increased use of coal and corn based ethanol as but two examples of quick fixes. They are quick fixes because we possess the technology in a sufficiently developed state to implement these solutions now. There are others in this category.
Each solution has its supporters. Most of these are advocated by people with a personal economic interest in their adoption. They will emphasize the benefits and dismiss the problems. Beware the quick fix.
That's Wade's two cents.
Wade Houston
October 15, 2007
None of this was unforeseen. But we lacked the political will to do much about it until the situation became urgent. Maybe some of the blame can be placed on oil industry lobbyists; maybe not. But the situation has become increasingly difficult to simply dismiss as "the pessimistic forecasts of the chronic doom sayers".
The fact that we need energy independence as soon as possible (if not yesterday) has increased the likelihood that we will make some bad choices. We want the quick fixes. But we need to take some time to think through the consequences of those fixes.
Some want us to move into greater use of coal and its derivative, coal oil. We can do that. The United States has vast quantities of coal. It has been said that the U.S. is to coal what Saudi Arabia is to oil. That would certainly make us energy independent, and we already have the technology. The problem is that it would be an environmental catastrophe.
Traditional coal mining (digging caves in the ground) is dangerous to the miners. Mountain top removal is ugly and pollutes our streams and rivers. Burning coal releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide along with other pollutants. When it comes to fuel sources, you can hardly get more carbon based than coal. We could use coal to almost completely solve the problem of reliance on foreign sources for our energy. But by doing so we could destroy our fresh water supplies and further pollute our air while simultaneously hastening global warming.
Corn farmers want us to do more with converting corn to ethanol. We already have the technology to do this. Since corn is grown, it is a renewable resource. Burning ethanol does release some carbon dioxide, but carbon dioxide is absorbed from the air by the corn plants themselves. So it sort of cleans up after itself and becomes the perfect solution, right? Wrong!
Corn is useful for an amazing number of things. So many, in fact, it is a waste to burn it up. If you walked through your local grocery store and removed everything that had corn or a corn derivative in it, you would find the shelves rather barren. If you took away animals raised on corn products, much of the meat, eggs, and dairy would disappear. Obviously, anything that increases our demand for corn is going to cause the cost of a lot of other things to rise.
There are also the fuel expenditures in raising corn and getting the ethanol to market. Furthermore, it would require all the suitable agricultural land in the U.S. just to grow enough corn to produce the amount of ethanol required to replace our need for gasoline and diesel. There would be no farmland for anything else. However, as we diminish our population through starvation, we would find our energy needs going down.
I have named the increased use of coal and corn based ethanol as but two examples of quick fixes. They are quick fixes because we possess the technology in a sufficiently developed state to implement these solutions now. There are others in this category.
Each solution has its supporters. Most of these are advocated by people with a personal economic interest in their adoption. They will emphasize the benefits and dismiss the problems. Beware the quick fix.
That's Wade's two cents.
Wade Houston
October 15, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
The Frugal Environmentalist
Frugal living often combines beautifully with caring for our environment. Perhaps you know someone who buys lots of plastic bags. Every time she wants another, she just reaches for the roll of plastic bags and peels off another. When she's through with the bag, she just throws it in the trash. This is her routine. It wastes money, and all that extra plastic in the trash is bad for the environment.
There are ways to have the convenience of a plastic bag when you need it. You can even reduce your ecological footprint, and save money at the same time. Here's a wonderful example that was shared with me. Give it a try.
The next time you reach the end of a box of facial tissues, don't throw that box away. Instead, reuse it in a different way. When you come home from the store, take those empty plastic bags you carried your purchases in and stuff them into the empty tissue box. You will find one box can hold quite a few bags. Then, whenever you need a plastic bag, you can simply reach for that tissue box and pull one out. You are doing your own recycling of plastic bags and tissue boxes. You are also saving money over buying small plastic bags from the store.
I keep one of these tissue boxes stuffed with bags in the trunk of my car. I never know when I might be out somewhere and find I need a plastic bag. I also keep an empty tissue box in my car to use as a trash collector. I burst out laughing when I saw disposable automobile trash bags being marketed in the store. My reused tissue boxes are sturdier and cost me nothing extra.
There are lots of simple, easy, and sensible ways we can make less of a negative impact on the environment. We need to make these types of adjustments fashionable. Use these ideas and share them with others.
That's my two cents.
Wade Houston
September 20, 2007
There are ways to have the convenience of a plastic bag when you need it. You can even reduce your ecological footprint, and save money at the same time. Here's a wonderful example that was shared with me. Give it a try.
The next time you reach the end of a box of facial tissues, don't throw that box away. Instead, reuse it in a different way. When you come home from the store, take those empty plastic bags you carried your purchases in and stuff them into the empty tissue box. You will find one box can hold quite a few bags. Then, whenever you need a plastic bag, you can simply reach for that tissue box and pull one out. You are doing your own recycling of plastic bags and tissue boxes. You are also saving money over buying small plastic bags from the store.
I keep one of these tissue boxes stuffed with bags in the trunk of my car. I never know when I might be out somewhere and find I need a plastic bag. I also keep an empty tissue box in my car to use as a trash collector. I burst out laughing when I saw disposable automobile trash bags being marketed in the store. My reused tissue boxes are sturdier and cost me nothing extra.
There are lots of simple, easy, and sensible ways we can make less of a negative impact on the environment. We need to make these types of adjustments fashionable. Use these ideas and share them with others.
That's my two cents.
Wade Houston
September 20, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Global Warming Speeds Up - Naturally
Those who study global warming talk about a tipping point. That is, there comes a point when we have gone so far into the process of global warming, it cannot be halted. How can that be?
Well, consider the polar ice caps. The ice reflects large amounts of light and heat back into space. The world is cooler than it would be otherwise because we have these great areas of packed snow and ice. But, the ice caps are diminishing. The north and south polar regions are actually heating up faster than the rest of the planet. The Arctic is melting exposing more open sea which absorbs light and heat much more than the ice. The same sort of thing is happening to the ice shelves in the Antarctic. So, there is less ice to reflect light and heat. The planet heats up more. The melting gets faster. And so on.
Now consider the matter of permafrost. Permafrost is ground that so cold it remains frozen year round. There are several areas of permafrost around the world. Many of these are actually frozen bogs. Over the past few years, as the world has been heating up, a growing number of these sections have been defrosting. They are no longer permafrost.
The problem lies in that the frozen state of these bogs kept contained large quantities of methane gas. Methane in the environment is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere the way carbon dioxide does, but it is 25 times more powerful in its heat trapping action. As the permafrost melts it is releasing huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. This is speeding up the process of global warming.
So, with the melting of the polar ice and the release of methane with the defrosting of permafrost, we have two examples in which nature itself has joined in the process of heating up our planet. When the tipping point is reached, nature will keep the process of global warming rolling even if all of the human contributions cease. There can be no going back.
Because the polar regions are showing more drastic warming trends than the rest of the planet, the natural contributions to the global warming factors are entering the picture sooner than expected and to a greater extent. This means that the furthermost out (later in time) predictions of when the tipping point would be reached are definitely wrong. The climate change is not going to be nearly as gradual as we hoped.
That's my two cents.
Wade Houston
September 12, 2007
Well, consider the polar ice caps. The ice reflects large amounts of light and heat back into space. The world is cooler than it would be otherwise because we have these great areas of packed snow and ice. But, the ice caps are diminishing. The north and south polar regions are actually heating up faster than the rest of the planet. The Arctic is melting exposing more open sea which absorbs light and heat much more than the ice. The same sort of thing is happening to the ice shelves in the Antarctic. So, there is less ice to reflect light and heat. The planet heats up more. The melting gets faster. And so on.
Now consider the matter of permafrost. Permafrost is ground that so cold it remains frozen year round. There are several areas of permafrost around the world. Many of these are actually frozen bogs. Over the past few years, as the world has been heating up, a growing number of these sections have been defrosting. They are no longer permafrost.
The problem lies in that the frozen state of these bogs kept contained large quantities of methane gas. Methane in the environment is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere the way carbon dioxide does, but it is 25 times more powerful in its heat trapping action. As the permafrost melts it is releasing huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. This is speeding up the process of global warming.
So, with the melting of the polar ice and the release of methane with the defrosting of permafrost, we have two examples in which nature itself has joined in the process of heating up our planet. When the tipping point is reached, nature will keep the process of global warming rolling even if all of the human contributions cease. There can be no going back.
Because the polar regions are showing more drastic warming trends than the rest of the planet, the natural contributions to the global warming factors are entering the picture sooner than expected and to a greater extent. This means that the furthermost out (later in time) predictions of when the tipping point would be reached are definitely wrong. The climate change is not going to be nearly as gradual as we hoped.
That's my two cents.
Wade Houston
September 12, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
The Demonization of Environmentalists
I got quite a start one day as I was reading a novel of fiction by conservative Christian writer, Larry Burkett. The novel was given to me as a Christmas gift. The giver genuinely thought I would enjoy reading it. What caught me off guard was the way it demonized environmentalists.
Whoa! When did this happen that environmentalists were regarded as the tools of Satan? It didn't make sense. It certainly did not square with my understanding of the Bible. But it provoked me to do a little probing.
In recent times, many in the evangelical Christian community (a.k.a. Christian right) have become more politically active. So what? Good citizenship is encouraged in Christian teaching. However, largely due to the efforts of the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others, most of these Christian political activists have aligned themselves with the most conservative wing of the Republican party.
What my probing revealed was that many of these right wing Christians had been just as influenced by the party as they were able to influence the party for their causes. For example, in the same way these right wing Christians had pushed their agendas of Right to Life and intolerance of homosexuality onto right wing Republicans, the right wing Republicans had swayed many of these right wing Christians to embrace the other issues such as hostility toward environmentalists as their own. When this is put in a God versus the devil context in the minds of these right wing Christians, that must mean environmentalists are being used by the devil to thwart the purposes of God.
I couldn't believe people bought into that sort of nonsense. But, apparently, many have. I am reminded of the serpent telling Eve how good the forbidden fruit was for making them wise and godlike.
Quite the opposite of what anti-environmentalists might want Christians to believe, God gave mankind dominion over the earth to take care of it, not to destroy it. What greater evidence that God was concerned with the survival of the different species could we have than the narrative of Noah preserving numerous animals from the devastation of the flood? Jesus said that God cares about every sparrow that falls and even the lilies of the field. How can a Christian ignore the environment? Good stewardship of God's creation should be intrinsic to any sort of Christian political activism. Any other position is a lie from the devil, and it is time it was exposed.
That's my two cents.
Wade Houston
September 9, 2007
Whoa! When did this happen that environmentalists were regarded as the tools of Satan? It didn't make sense. It certainly did not square with my understanding of the Bible. But it provoked me to do a little probing.
In recent times, many in the evangelical Christian community (a.k.a. Christian right) have become more politically active. So what? Good citizenship is encouraged in Christian teaching. However, largely due to the efforts of the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others, most of these Christian political activists have aligned themselves with the most conservative wing of the Republican party.
What my probing revealed was that many of these right wing Christians had been just as influenced by the party as they were able to influence the party for their causes. For example, in the same way these right wing Christians had pushed their agendas of Right to Life and intolerance of homosexuality onto right wing Republicans, the right wing Republicans had swayed many of these right wing Christians to embrace the other issues such as hostility toward environmentalists as their own. When this is put in a God versus the devil context in the minds of these right wing Christians, that must mean environmentalists are being used by the devil to thwart the purposes of God.
I couldn't believe people bought into that sort of nonsense. But, apparently, many have. I am reminded of the serpent telling Eve how good the forbidden fruit was for making them wise and godlike.
Quite the opposite of what anti-environmentalists might want Christians to believe, God gave mankind dominion over the earth to take care of it, not to destroy it. What greater evidence that God was concerned with the survival of the different species could we have than the narrative of Noah preserving numerous animals from the devastation of the flood? Jesus said that God cares about every sparrow that falls and even the lilies of the field. How can a Christian ignore the environment? Good stewardship of God's creation should be intrinsic to any sort of Christian political activism. Any other position is a lie from the devil, and it is time it was exposed.
That's my two cents.
Wade Houston
September 9, 2007
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