Solar energy in its non-fossilized forms – wind, hydro, biofuels, tidal, and direct use of the sun’s rays – are called “renewable,” meaning that it does not require vast geological ages to recreate them.
The term, however, can be misleading. All can only be renewed at a pace that natural cycles allow. The amount of solar energy that shines down upon the earth may seem inexhaustible, but it is extremely dilute. In order to match the highly concentrated power of fossil fuels, it must collected over vast areas and then brought together.
It is the collection process that is not inexhaustible and not always renewable. Hydroelectric dams, the most successful form of non-fossilized solar power, back up reservoirs covering hundreds of square miles in order to generate the same amount of electricity produced by a mile-square coal plant (not counting the area required to mine the coal).…
Continue Reading“I cannot abide the suggestion that we must sacrifice our environment in order to save it. This is an absurd argument enabling this energy imposter’s invasion of delicate habitat with little return. … Environmentalists must consider the possibility that industrial wind, by its failure to perform to stated goals, does not then qualify for this sacred consideration.”
The heavily funded and admittedly effective U.S. industrial wind lobby portrays its product as descending from old-world windmills. Close your eyes and you’ll surely imagine these magnificent machines gently turning in the breeze … each kilowatt arriving at your reading lamp courtesy of a rosy–cheeked Hummel child.
Existing solely to save the planet by generating clean, affordable and environmentally friendly electricity, you can be sure that any addition to the plant owner’s bank account is purely accidental.…
Continue ReadingGeorge Will, the masterful voice of intellectual conservatism (and almost libertarianism), turned to energy in a recent Washington Post column. In Ringing in a Conservative Year (December 30), Will considered the underlying economic reality that will help shape 2012 politics. Obama or not, Will sees technological/economic trends as powerful if not controlling.
Will’s essay draws upon a startling fact: “In 2011, for the first time in 62 years, America was a net exporter of petroleum products.”
He continues with a play off of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto:
… Continue ReadingFor the indefinite future, a specter is haunting progressivism, the specter of abundance. Because progressivism exists to justify a few people bossing around most people and because progressives believe that only government’s energy should flow unimpeded, they crave energy scarcities as an excuse for rationing — by them — that produces ever-more-minute government supervision of Americans’ behavior.