As we contemplate all of the ongoing media messages and information swirling around the problems our city and country face regarding our use or abuse of how we create and use energy, it has got to be apparent that without it, nothing happens. The easiest way to look at energy and what it means to all of us is to reflect on the shortest definition I have yet to come on. Energy is the ability to make something happen! A world without energy can not exist. So are we really addicted to energy, or do we understand that as a society and as individuals, energy is so much a part of our very existence?
Now the issue is how do we find or create sources of this so vital component of our daily lives wherein we can cross the great controversial divide and understand that without energy, we go nowhere. Certainly new resources of off shore oil appear to be plentiful for at least the short run with wind and solar on the other hand seeming limitless. A recent T. Boone Pickens media blitz calls on the ability of our great national open spaces to become the new wind and solar energy farms of America. That sounds very promising with only one problem, according to his calculations, it will only fill the gap for 20% of our energy needs.
So what about nuclear? The French have had it right for decades, fully 80% of their electrical energy is derived from their nuclear energy operations. If my math is right, France creates 80% nuclear power for their national needs, Pickens calls for the great plains to generate 20% of our energy needs, can it be that we could inch closer to total 100% electrical energy independence without burning fossil fuel?
Just imagine the future… temporarily using petroleum to power our vehicles, hybrid and otherwise in the short term, and looking long term to preserve this nature’s gift to mankind as a valuable national and natural treasure for the multitude of products that oil is otherwise used for and allow for this non-renewable resource to actually become recyclable.
Just imagine.