< PREVIOUS ] [ 2006 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
Our President alit in Colorado last week, burning tons of jet fuel on his way to and from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden so he could amplify a statement in his recent State of the Union message.
He said then that our country is addicted to oil.
His Golden visit, as well as the restoration of some
funding for the laboratory, could be the start of a 12-step
cure. But the problem with energy is that what looks like a
cure often turns out to have its own problems.
A century ago, for instance, horse manure was a major concern in cities. Electric streetcars could get people to and from work, but they couldn't really deliver the goods. So there was an immense sanitation problem from the Belgians and Percherons that pulled the wagons.
Enter the automobile, which consumed gasoline instead of oats, and solved the droppings problem. It did, however, create its own forms of pollution which we still grapple with.
Electricity is, of itself, about as clean as energy can get. Before the light bulb, many Americans lit their homes at night with kerosene lamps. The kerosene was presumably better for the environment than its predecessor, whale oil. That we have any whales left to save is probably to the credit of John D. Rockefeller.
Making electricity often involves burning coal -- a non-renewable fossil fuel which produces greenhouse gases while spewing toxins like mercury into the atmosphere.
Some people I know try to sidestep that by going off
the grid
with solar-electric panels and battery
storage. So far, so good. They're not burning any fossil
fuels, at least for lighting their homes.
But the batteries have lead plates. Lead is a toxic material. Mining and refining it pollute our environment. Whether the overall benefits outweigh the overall environmental costs is beyond my ability to compute, but it is clear that these systems are not entirely benign.
Wind turbines kill birds (which is fine by me, since I
can't stand the creatures, but there are folks who cherish
their feathered friends
), and the home versions also
use lead-acid batteries.
Further, these abodes are often in remote rural locations where the homeowners tend to put many miles on their vehicles. Is there a net gain when you burn a lot of gasoline to avoid having the power company burn a lot of coal?
Such computations are tricky. I've seen studies which purport to show that American ethanol production consumes more energy -- planting, tilling, harvesting, transport, distillation -- than it provides. And I've seen studies that show that ethanol is a good deal; it seems to be working in Brazil.
I've read similar arguments on one side or the other about biodiesel. Although I was pretty good at science and math in high school, I'm not equipped to sort through these presentations. The only thing that seems clear is that if Iowa did not have an early presidential caucus, there would be much less political support for ethanol.
And it is discouraging to conduct a thought experiment. Suppose that some gene-splicing biotech lab came up with a hardy plant that oozed useful oil. It grew like a weed with no cultivation, and insects despised its taste. It needed only a 90-day growing season and less than a foot of water a year, and that water could be raw sewage.
So here would be a perfect solution to our petroleum addiction -- a cheap renewable supply that could be produced entirely from domestic sources.
And what would happen? Of course there would be nasty patent fights. If those were resolved, there would be environmental concerns about the billions of insects who used to dine where the new crop was being grown, and about the birds and bats that used to eat those insects.
And if we had an abundance of cheap fuel, how much more would we drive? How much harder would it be to find a parking place? How far would suburban sprawl spread? How many more highways would we have to build?
Of course we should wish the NREL well, just as the President did. But let's not fool ourselves into believing that if they solve one of our problems, they'll solve all of our problems.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 2006 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >