Finding the US energy independence voice

Friday, May 23, 2008 9:09 AM
Today I am going to discuss a topic that is becoming almost the quintessential topic being discussed in cafés, blogs, taxi-lines, and around dinner tables; every place but where it should be: the halls of Congress. This topic is the energy crisis facing the US.

Now before we start going off the deep-end about who is to blame, remember, this blog is about solving problems not assigning blame. It does little good to spend time discussing who is to blame about something that is already upon you. That would be like stopping to talk about the crime problem while you are being mugged. So let's begin this entry by talking about the problem from the stand point of what is wrong rather than who is to blame. We can let the politicos handle that fruitless arm of the issue.

First, for a systems engineer to begin crafting a solution, he/she has to understand the problem and its parameters. So here are some things that I offer as the basis and ground work for this stage of the discussion:

1. Energy is the most important ingredient to wealth-creation which is the most important ingredient to raising the human condition from poverty to subsistence.
Now before you argue, think about it. With an unlimited supply of energy, accomplishing projects of clean air, water, and food become almost simple. Providing appropriate housing, transportation, and technology are also simplified if this premise is met.

2. Use of hydrocarbons is NOT the prime contributing factor in climate change. OK, please before you start blathering about Al Gore's movie or what you are being inundated with at school about man-created global warming, do your homework. Google "global warming problems" and read some of the scholarly works that show the silliness of this belief. To put it simply: the world is warming up from a cold spell that began almost 400-500 years ago, so yes, the world is warming up, but it is from where it is warming up from that is being misconstrued. Do some homework on the surface temperatures of the Sargossa Sea (a 2 million sq mi area of the Atlantic Ocean). I am not going to do you homework for you. Use your computer and learn!

3. Use of energy by the US population is NOT bad, but supplies the major economy and innovation engine of the world. The US just needs to become energy-exporting not energy-importing. This is very possible, but requires a revitalization of the US innovative nature and spirit. Most of the world's life-enhancing and elongating technologies are created in the US or US companies. This is due to the capitalistic-economy of the US. If this changes, the whole world could be in danger of stagnation.

4. The US has enough of its own resources (hydrocarbons, renewable, nuclear, etc) to become energy-independent thereby decreasing the need for the US project itself into geopolitical situations in order to protect its flow of remote energy sources. This would be agreeable to both the conservatives and liberals but for different reasons.

Second, with these assumptions as the basis for our discussion, we now turn to the most plausible solution to the US energy-independency need now facing this nation. Let's look at each of the possible local energy sources: hydrocarbons (petroleum, bio-fuels, coal, natural gas), renewable (solar, wind, hydroelectric), and nuclear.

Hydrocarbons: well first of all, the hysteria about hydrocarbons causing global warming is just that: hysteria. Do your homework and stop just accepting what pseudo-intellectuals like Al Gore are telling you to believe. Here is a man that flunked out of divinity school and almost flunked out of all his science courses in college trying to tell the world about the science of climate change. Al is a politician with an agenda. Even the British High Court said his theories are "poorly substantiated" and they even delineated 9 major errors in his film. Do your own thinking and research. However, hydrocarbons in their current form cost large amounts of money to bring to market, and suffer from the same limitation: no more hydrocarbons are being created. We should use hydrocarbons while we are developing unlimited alternatives.

Renewable: the current state of these energies preclude them from providing the US with any appreciable solution to energy-independence. Barring some major technology break through, these alternatives will have to wait their time for utilization.

Nuclear: here is the solution that can provide the US with its easiest, cleanest, and cheapest answer to the problem of energy-independence. The major problem is the 1970-1980's media-produced hysteria about the evils of nuclear-energy. Using the fear of the nuclear weapon era, a whole population has become scared into believing that nuclear power is nuclear holocaust. People have simply stopped learning. The technology of nuclear energy has solved the 2 major issues with nuclear energy in the US: 1) what to do with spent fuel rods, 2) preventing nuclear accidents.

Before dealing with these issues, let's do some math about how nuclear energy can provide the US with its own ability to export energy instead of net importing energy stores. Here goes:

The US needs about 700 Gigawatts (GWe) of electrical energy to support its current near-term future economic issues. Currently the US generates only 20% of its electricity via nuclear energy. or around 90 GWe. Raising this to 700 GWe would provide all the electrical energy needed in the US as well as providing about 300 GWe of exportable energy or to use to create "manufactured" hydrocarbons. Using current nuclear technology, this amount of energy could be created in just 35 nuclear power plants placed around the US for a total cost of $1 trillion dollars or just 18 months of the current oil purchasing cost of t he US ($700 billion at $120 a barrel oil) or 30% of the current US federal budget, or just 7.5% of the US GDNP! Not bad, eh?

So why are we not developing our own energy independence via this very possible and cost-effective solution? We could design, develop, and build these plants within 10 years. Think about it: during that same time, we will have sent $7 trillion dollars over seas to people that want to kill us for their oil and in 10 years still be energy-dependent.

In the next session of this blog, we will deal with the 2 nuclear issues: dealing with spent fuel rods, and possibility of nuclear accidents. Think about it, folks: if we don't do something now, we will simply get more and more of what we don't want (higher fuel prices, dropping home prices -- yes they are tied to energy costs) and we will get it faster and faster.

Get angry! Yell at your elected officials. They only understand the raised voice!