Energy Frustration

The topic of energy brings up sore points all around. I hear all sides bemoan our dependence on foreign oil, yet no one really seems to want to change it. The technologies exist to allow us to make more fuel efficient gasoline engines. Gas turbines, clean diesel bio-diesel, all are marketable now. We have the ability to separate hydrogen from water using radio waves. We have Natural Gas in abundance that could be harnessed for our needs. Wind, Hydro, Tides, Nuclear, Clean Coal. Every one of these could put us another step towards that idea of energy independence. Yet every one has a well funded lobby aiming to keep it from becoming a reality. Every one has been stopped at some point from being built or used in an effective manner.

I hear environmentally focused friends proclaim how wonderful it would be to have "plug in Electric cars". I wonder where they think the electricity in that outlet comes from? I hear nuclear power bashed for being .. well nuclear. "It produces nuclear waste that will be in our environment for millions of years!" As this sermon is delivered I watch the environmentalist lecturing me as he is sipping from his plastic bottle of water. I actually heard Cleaner coal burning technologies bashed as an "untried technology" Gee, hasn't all technology through out all time began untested?

Cars and transportation are all well and good but our true concern in energy should be the grid. We don't have enough energy production in our country to support its present or future needs. Rolling black outs ad failures of parts of the national grid show this all to clearly. If we don't do something soon. we are going to be in the dark. quite literally...

I am sure the average man does not grasp the enormity of a complete grid failure. Most all of the other utilities rely on the grid to keep running. Water Pumps, Gas compressors, flood control, Sewage removal and treatment, food processing. all of this and so much more just goes away. We need energy independence to assure our way of life, not our way to work.