Energy
April 27th, 2008One serious problem with American politics is we have too many lawyers and businessmen running this country and not enough scientists and doctors.
Whether we like it or not, energy will be quite possibly the biggest problem in the next twenty years. We cannot continually depend on foreign oil, especially with the continual wars in the Middle East, and China and India entering the picture.
Scientific American (January 2008) proposed a solution how to solve our energy crisis with Solar Power. We build a giant solar infrastructure in the Southwest, and route the energy nationwide. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read the article, you can read it here.
Not only would solar power solve our dependency on foreign oil, it would cut carbon dioxide emissions significantly. For those of you who believe in global warming, our CO2 emissions would drop from 6.1 billion tons (2007 estimate) to 2.3 billion tons in 2050 with the solar plan in place. If you don’t believe in global warming, fine, but let’s just say you’ll be breathing cleaner air.
Amazingly, the price of electricity would drop because solar power is continual. Currently, we’re paying around 20c per kWh, whereas in 2050, it would be 9c per kWh. Yes, we’ll still have to use oil, but our consumption would drop significantly, from 6.9 billion barrels to 2.7. The scientists who wrote the article stated we have the oil reserves to supply our own oil at this rate, and won’t need to use foreign oil.
The catch? Well, there are 2:
1) It will cost $420 billion over the next 40 years. As big as that number sounds, it’s really nothing when you consider that we’ll have no reason to be in the Middle East EVER AGAIN. And as I’ve already mentioned, the price of electricity would be less than half of what we pay today. Imagine taking your energy bill and cutting it in half.
2) We’ll need a politician to put this through who isn’t owned by the oil companies. That there’s the stinger.
I know Energy is about the most unsexy political issue today, but I guarantee you within twenty years, it will be our most important.
You’re right, how come our very clever leaders haven’t thought and implement that already?
You say: “we’ll have no reason to be in the Middle East EVER AGAIN. ” I don’t know, it’s just a guess, maybe we have reasons to be in the Middle east as a balance beetween East and West, or because of global economy, or something very important I am too numb to imagine.
In any case, I am sure there is many alternatives to oil, and they have never been implemented, why?
Amen to the extreme on there being far too many lawyers and businessmen when we have to import engineers and scientists from outside America. I haven’t read the article yet but like a number of important items that could have at least blunted our crack-like addiction to Middle East oil certain important people will do their best to discredit and bury this idea. As for the price 420 billion is small potatoes to what we will end up paying for the war in Iraq.
Kitem - Because it’s all about money. the oil companies can afford to buy politicians.
Beach - As for the price 420 billion is small potatoes to what we will end up paying for the war in Iraq.
Hit the nail on the head there.
quote: “One serious problem with American politics is we have too many lawyers and businessmen running this country and not enough scientists and doctors.”
Might I suggest this is because scientists and doctors have REAL jobs and and not bullshit jobs that can be taken over by interns?
-r
my deux francs
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Holy crank！ It’s calling me ‘Savaage’ (with the double A) and won’t let me change it. boo.
-r
PS: I think my real name is Steven.
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it won’t even take 20 years for energy to become THE issue. clearly we need alternative sources. i’m not sure the southwest needs to power the entire nation but surely there is significant energy to be harnessed right there. i think we need to take advantage of the various opportunities that exist across a geographically diverse nation. solar power in the southwest. hydroelectic on the rivers, in Pa i just read this weekend about dairy farms in lancaster county that have enzymatic digesters which harvest the methane in manure piles. the farms are not only providing all their own electricity but producing enough to send out onto the grid for others to use. additionally the product that is left after it goes through the digesters is useful as mulch. this is a win/win/win. nothing is wasted. it costs about a million dollar per farm to set up though. but if every dairy farm in PA had one of these it would make a HUGE difference.
10.5 billion per year for 40 years doesn’t sound quite as… painful. Unless I did my math wrong, which is entirely possible.
Sounds like a great idea to me. If the Arabs had an ounce of innovation at all, they would be looking at Solar Panels in the Empty Quarter as well. And when a source of energy is perpetual and renewable, you don’t have to fight over it like you do when it is running out.
why not just be partnrs with the Iraquies?
ok thats craazy I know. How bout mixing in some drilling in the US??
Anything beats being the bitch of the towel wearers.
Savage - Well, they can always take time off.
Lime - Agreed. The study did say the Southwest has the power for the whole nation (combined with our current oil, coal, natural gas, et cetera reserves).
And I’m all for alternative energy sources. Manure? Sure. Sounds good to me. Good thing to see someone put shit to good use (pun intended).
Courtney - It’s not. It’s less than the subsidies we give farmers.
Raemius - They just have so much oil that it appears limitless right now. But yes, they get plenty of sun and it’s not being utilized.
Sage - Why be involved there at all? With this plan, we’d need absolutely zero Mideast oil. We have enough reserves in this country that combined with this huge solar power, we won’t need them whatsoever.
Here I am sitting in front of my computer with writers block once again.. I swear sometimes its all I have.. and here you are giving people information and hope. Thank you so much.
Sometimes I feel that we’ve (we = society) been pushed too far down the rabbit hole to ever find our way out again. Its so layered and complicated that most people are happy to chalk it up to conspiracy theory and idealism and go on like everything is ok.
Solar energy is a great plan, and one of the great things about it is, eventually we won’t have a choice. Unless someone is holding a gun to your head giving you a choice to do something or die, people will treat this like they do their teeth… do nothing until the pain is so bad you have to do something, and by then its too late.
Can we blame them? Maybe, but we are all trained to stick our heads in the sand and let the big decisions be made for us. Retraining is the order of the day people.
ZS Is solar viable? I mean why would we not be using it now if it was viable? If solar is cheaper I can pretty much promise you we would be using it!
Zombie - Come read my current post. I’m off to read your Scientific American reference now. I think you will really appreciate the excerpt I posted from the book I am reading. It absolutely nails how I feel about energy.
Well, I got to disagree with you on the means ZS but I do agree with you on the ends. Go to http://www.beyondfossilfuels.com and check out this guy, he knows his shit and he says the one, and only real, answer to solving our energy policy is nuclear power plants. It’s got to happen and happen now. Besides solar is way too expensive in relation to what nuclear would be (with some de-regulation of course). We haven’t built a NPP here in the US since like 1976 and about the same for an oil refinery. We need to work on those two factors before we start putting solar panels everywhere (plus the tech is off the charts expensive for now and the forseeable future).
Our country is energy efficient in that way.
All our househole use Hydro Power Energy. The advantage of being a little late in the process of development is that, you can always learn from the mistake that the developed counties make.
Wind power IS viable. Boone Pickens says so, and I believe that man. He’s taking big leases all over the ‘wind belt’ of the midwest and his numbers make sense (I AM a mathematician - go look here: (http://xkcd.com/435) I am in that drawing.)
Besides, it is just so very cool! There are wind turbines out there that have been running for many years with little maintenance. There are these really nifty ones that will work well in even hurricane force winds (in fact they work BETTER in very high wind - look up Savonius turbine in Wikipedia, that font garbage, but also sometimes gems of knowledge)
So I wish I owned some of the ‘wind belt’ land, as the leases are extremely lucrative! Boone doesn’t buy the land, the guys get to keep and continue to ranch it (cattle folks, steers…). Ergo they get their BBQ and with a cherry on top.
Love you ZS, keep ‘em coming.
Your adoring but someone socially inept mathematician…