Welcome to the first in a series of columns about traditional energy and alternate energy in America. They are intended to pique your interest in the value of alternate energy and will explore the broad range of areas that energy use, in general, affects with environmental impacts, the economy and global politics being the chief entities. My goal is to engage you in a conversation as to just how important the need for change in our energy structure is. First, we need to define alternate energy. In the public conscience alternate energy is mostly understood to be solar or wind. However, it can also mean methane reduced to hydrogen, which produces only water as a byproduct like the Bloom Box, or advanced electrical storage technology, wave turbines, or the holy grail, cold fusion. Or who knows? Whatever the future brings. I am passionate and equally frustrated about alternate energy. To me, it seems the logical choice to be our foundation of energy usage, but it is only marginally acted upon. Solar, wind, geothermal technology are moving forward; however, they are hampered by lobbying powers that stand to gain by inhibiting them. The research is significantly under-funded as well. Oil, coal, and nuclear receive far more in federal funding for “research” than do solar, wind and geothermal. Covered in these monthly columns will be the costs of our fossil and nuclear fuels, both the internal and external. A history of energy is necessary too. It was that history that created the path, aka the infrastructure, we are on now. Spoiler alert 1: Edison and Ford wanted electric cars. Where would we be today if that had happened? In the field of energy, alternate energy is the future. If we lack the discipline to embrace it fully now it will force us to embrace it fully in the future. Advances in technology have accelerated the acquisition of coal, oil and natural gas. Oil, coal, and natural gas are finite resources. This technology, however, is not replacing these resources. Nuclear power is like a beautiful woman, very alluring but high maintenance with limited up time and bad news if she gets out of control. One topic that belongs in the energy circle is the affect conservation. My father was a big influence on my view of things in general, but of his counsel, I took most to heart his disdain for waste. America is a waste machine. We are guilty of excess along with the blindness to the cost of that waste not only in resources but in the energy to create these products from these resources. Spoiler alert 2: Did you know that 90 percent of the electricity used is for operating just two items: lights and motors. Image if all the lights in the nation were converted to LEDs — at the click of a finger, we could reduce the electric power consumption by 20 percent. That would equal all the power produced today by nuclear. With conservation, we also need to consider all the water that is required to produce energy. I hope you will stay tuned and comment freely.
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AuthorJames Bobreski is a process control engineer who has been in the field of electric power production for 43 years. His “Alternate Energy” column runs monthly. Archives
June 2020
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