Energy Efficiency, Conservation, and Renewables — Good Ideas Regardless of How They're Received
It’s the birthday of journalist and activist Jonathan Kozol, a teacher in Boston, who wrote largely on his experiences with school segregation and institutionalized racism. I had an extremely progressive English teacher my junior year in high school who guided us through a few of Kozol’s essays; I recall how impressed I was with the power of his writing, and I note, looking back, how profoundly influential he’s been over the past half century.
More to the point, Kozol said, “Pick battles large enough to matter, small enough to win.” That’s food for thought, to be sure, as we go about our work trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a society largely indifferent – in some cases openly hostile – to the concept.
I suppose the best position, ironically, is one of indifference. Of course, we’d all like our ideas to be greeted warmly; we’d feel great to see our promotion of cleantech making clear and decisive change. Realistically, however, good ideas aren’t always embraced immediately, though that doesn’t make them any less “good.”
Whether the world realizes it or not, it needs to cut energy consumption, via conservation and efficiency, and it needs to make the remaining consumption less impactful on the environment, via the migration to renewables. Let’s never cease to tell that story and be a part of the process of taking good ideas forward, knowing that our day will come.
“Whether the world realizes it or not, it needs to cut energy consumption, via conservation and efficiency, and it needs to make the remaining consumption less impactful on the environment, via the migration to renewables.”
That may be possible in the U.S., although it’s doubtful. However, we should be able to slow down the increase in energy consumption in the U.S. One step would be to stop expanding highways to accommodate people who want to live in outlying areas.
However, on a global basis, there has to be an INCREASE in energy consumption to enable the billions of poor people to be lifted out of poverty. The challenge, then, is to make more energy available without creating negative externalities.
Check out these links to see how Germany is dealing with the phasing out of nuclear power:
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=5064
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/04/germany-norway-gas-idUSL6E8K49TW20120904
Briefly, the phasing out of nuclear power is causing Germany to burn more coal. That would be bad enough, but they are burning lignite coal, which is the dirtiest kind of coal. They are even building more coal burning power plants. Diligent Internet searching will reveal additional information about this.
In addition, the phasing out of nuclear power is resulting in more grid instability which is causing large users of electricity to instal their own Diesel fuel burning generators.
This additional burning of fossil fuels obviously is not environmentally desirable. Furthermore, it was predicted; no one can honestly assert that it was a surprise. Moreover, it is the same sort of thing we can expect on a global bases if we eschew the use of nuclear power. Even now, China is building about one coal burning power plant a week; evidently China has not found renewables up to the task. Probably India will soon be doing the same thing. Although nuclear power is not totally risk-free, it is still safer than the practical alternatives even if global warming is not considered. But if global warming is considered, nuclear power is the only thing that makes sense.
Rather than condemning nuclear power, we should be pushing for a safer nuclear technology which will eventually be able to phase out pressurized water uranium reactors. But until a safer nuclear technology is ready to be implemented, we must dramatically and rapidly increase the use of current nuclear power technology else the damage caused by global warming is likely to be so severe that nothing else will seem important.