Issues and Elections: Energy

The politics of fear, and corporate greed, are driving our perception of crisis, again. The rise of the nuclear industry, ANWAR, and additional offshore drilling, all on American soil, are entirely profit driven. This is the result of Bush policies that favored SUV's over energy efficient vehicles,and dismissed every option to help consumers help themselves including retrofitting inefficient home heating systems, incentives for installing solar, wind, geothermal systems, or incentives towards small energy efficient American made vehicles. The culture of excess is NOT the American way, just the corporate profit motive. Just like Bush told us that "going shopping" is a patriotic response to crisis, drilling and building more nuclear plants are old, outdated battle cries that don't respect our creativity and ability to think. And, as an aside, I'm just old enough to recall that the 1960's push towards nuclear power in this country had the tag line that we would have "power too cheap to meter!"

I've been following a grassroots discussion of alternative fuel technology at www.panaceauniversity.org with great interest, and am currently using a "hydroxy booster" with great sucess. It should be noted that this idea was tested by NASA back in the 70's with excelent results. There is overwhelming evidence that these technologies have been supressed by the government, and oil and automobile companies. Why, in the current environment, are these viable technologies still buried?

I am completely appalled at the ignorance on the state of energy technology of this morning's featured speakers on energy on The Exchange. They seemed to be stuck in the past and completely out of touch with what is now happening nationally and internationally on everything from capturing of waste heat to generate electricity, wind energy, photovoltaics, you name it.

This country went to sleep on the energy issue in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan abolished this country's renewable energy program and it became "morning in America."

The rest of the world continued to keep gas prices high enough to support the development of convenient, high-tech public transportation networks and policies that encouraged large-scale implementation of renewable energy facilities. There are now whole subdivisions of new homes being sold in Japan in which every house is solar-powered. Similar policies are in place in Germany, where the entire country is farther north than the most northern stretches of New England.

Even in this country, cellulosic ethanol is not just someone's laboratory-scale pipe dream. Mascoma Corporation, based in Lebanon, has the financial backing of major investors, from General Motors to Silicon Valley's Vinod Khosla. Mascoma is now building a fully commercial scale cellulosic ethanol refinery on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Wind energy is now a mature technology and entities ranging from General Electric to T. Boone Pickens are cashing in on this technology.

I would encourage NHPR to take a major step and do everything you can to EDUCATE our listeners about what is being done both abroad and elsewhere in the United States and begin to look at possibilities of what we here in New Hampshire can do to transition as quickly as possible toward a new economy based on renewable energy instead of the faltering system we are now stuck with based fossil fuels and nuclear power.

There is nothing new that needs to be invented for us to do this. All that R&D was done in the 1970s and has been simply waiting on the shelf for us to get serious about implementing it. Commercial scale installations with serious financial backing are going up all over the country. Why not New Hampshire.

I was extremely frustrated at this morning's program. All I was hearing were negative statements about why we cannot do this or that, and fragmented talk about this or that small component of the energy policy situation. To focus on the extremely important energy issue in this way is both unhelpful and discouraging. NHPR can and must do better than this.

I'd like to add my voice to Carol's and note that the Union of Concerned Scientists ran a program in the early 1990s called Renewables are Ready. Too bad no one was paying attention in Washington, and apparently the majority of Americans only truly care about the dollar cost of energy not it's environmental and social costs both in the U.S. and globally.

Renewables could already be providing a significant part of our energy needs. But never mind - let's move ahead - renewables are more ready than ever and can be deployed much more quickly than today's guests would have us believe. Former Gov. Angus King of Maine has come forward with a plan to meet 100% of Maine's electric needs from offshore wind farms. Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute says if we institute a crash program renewables can provide our national electric needs within 10 years. Let's get moving - the planet is getting hotter while politicians and naysayers dither! And yes, educate, educate, educate!!

Two years ago in May or so, I listend to a Science Friday guest-- Nobel Prize Laureate George Olah (et. al.), who wrote the book "Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economhy." In short, Dr. Olah told listeners that Methanol is a better alternative to gasoline than ethanol because it can derive from a wide variety of possible sources--its not necessary to make methanol out of a crop like corn or sugarcane. Methanol can be made from any carbon sourse, such as wood, natural gas, and crude oil; it burns much cleaner than either ehtanol or gasoline and more efficiently as well. What is more, according to the interview I listened to, Methanol can be reconverted into natual gas and made into other typical petroleum products such as plastic. Furthermore, he stated that it can be mixed with gasoline in any percentage. I looked into that and found that our automobiles would have to have a fairly minor device engineered into engine construction in order to accomodate this and I believe this must be the only reason you can't just poor methanol into your tank this minute...
I think part of my question: why, in all the hours and hours of public radio that I have listened to was this the last time I heard the word methanol used? In a show back in January or February I called "The Exchange" to bring up the topic of methanol because both Senators Obama and Clinton had promised the Coal Miners Union that they would support research into "liquid coal!" I jumped to the conclusion that the media chose this word because the average person on the street would never be able to discern the difference between ethanol and methanol in casual conversation. The next day I walked into the service station and there happened to be quite a few people milling around. I asked out loud so that anyone in the area could hear me, "Hey, anyone know the difference between ethanal and methanol!" One of the mechanics piped up and explained that they use methanol in dragsters. "It burns so hot that they have to rebuild the engines after each day of competition." he said.
Well that's not necessarily a reason not to use methanol, dragsters are hardly anything like the family automobile!

Another odd thing I learned about when investigating into solar power years ago was that there is a device known as a solar furnace. This is a parabolic dish that follows the sun across the sky and heats water to a temperature of 5000 degrees Farenheit! With all the mystery surrounding nuclear power they never tell you that all nuclear power plants do is heat water enough so that it makes steam to turn a turbine!
Look the average person does not have time to go around in circles like a treadmill. It should be the responsibility of journalists to keep reminding their political guests when we have heard the same stupid things before! Journalists should also go home and look some of this stuff up themselves, we don't care if you insult a few of your guests now and then!