Obama's New Bill

President Obama has put a new bill in act that will put money into the generation of wind and tidal power. Wind power is an alternative energy that has recently gotten more attention and has a huge amount of potential. Wave and tidal power is an area that has not recieved as much attention but is another form of energy that could make a large impact on the energy crisis. The tides are something that is constant and reliable and is provide power to costal cities. This is very important since most of our populations are located along the coast. This is an important step for the administration because of the current economy private firms are not as willing to invest there money into new technology. Until the economy turns for the better a majority of the funding is going to need to come from teh government if we really want to move from traditional power sources to renewable ones.

Going Green

The town of Greensburg in Kansas has begun to lead the way in the new green revolution that is in its infant stages of sweeping the nation. This town was destroyed by a tornado and instead of going back to the traditional life that they have always had they have made the decision to make a change. The town of 1400 has gone green make building green houses, using wind, solar and geothermal energy. The town has even built its own community wind farm that will provide power to general buildings throughout the town. The John Deer manufactor in the town has even joined in on the effort. They have built wind turbines to provide electricity and have installed lights that do not use electricity. There is a long tube that collects the light and mirrors deistribute the light. This project is relativly on the small side compared to trying to transofrm cities but it is a start. If more and more small towns start doing this hopefully more people will catch on and start to really push this new green revolution.

The New Crisis

The old saying of water water everywhere and not a drop to drink is becoming more of a reality everyday. Water is rapidly becoming the crisis of the 21st century. Here in the United States we consume about 600 liters of water per day where 50 is really only needed to sustain life. People in Africa would be lucky to consume 50 liters in Africa. It is true that water is a renewable resource and we can reverse pretty much all damage that we may cause to water. Aquifers all over the world are quickly running low and they are not able to recharge themselves. Much of the water that we are using from the aquifer is from the last ice age. For example in the plains of America we are pulling water from the Ogalla aquifer to water our crops. Because we are using so much water land subsidence is becoming prevalent. Adding more fuel to the fire is the fact that we are having droughts all over the world. We can see what can happen to farm land when there is a drought and no water for plant, the Dust Bowl of the thirties is a perfect example. This was before we were able to pull large quantise of water out of the ground then in addition to this was the drought that hit. Now that oil has been exploited companies are looking for new ways to make a profit. The new business is investing in water. Companies all over the world are buying the rights to water. They are "helping" nations with there issues of delivering water to its citizens. They over charge, have poor service and do not have the good of the environment in mind. This is a incredibly profitable business one company cleared $60 billion in one year. Fortunately we can help with the water crisis by fixing leaks, using better technology and making some sacrifices. 14 percent of water that flows through a municipal system is because of leaks, so we are paying for water that we are not even using. So if we can take care of these things and be more conscious about the water we use it can avoid a major problem.

$1000 car

A car company in Indian has developed a car that people are able to buy for $1000. Indian has over a billion poeople and most people are not able to afford a car. The problems that this issue presents is huge. the amount of emissions that would be released into the air is only going to accelerate global warming. On top of the amount of pollution that would be released is the fact that we are running out of oil. If we were to double or even triple the number of cars that are on the road we would really be in the fast lane to run out of oil. We are already behind the eight ball in terms of creating green technology and renewable resources. As nice as it would be to have everyone live as well as we do in the developed world, we can not be adding cars to our already huge problem. One part of this problem is that the company is not looking at the bigger issue of the amount of pollution being released or the fact that we are running out of oil. They need to see the damage they are causing to the enviornment and in turn all of us.

Drilling for oil today is not the answer we need to solve our energy crisis. If we are able to invest money into the development of new technology we could have a clean environment. Not only would we be green but we would be able to stop our reliance on foreign oil. This could improve our national security and allow us to spend money in other areas that need help. During the depression the government invested in the national park service to provide jobs to the public, if the government were to invest in green technology we could provide jobs to people and help jump start the economy. If we were to drill for off shore oil if would take time to retrieve the oil then transport it and refine it. In the time it would take and money spent to do all this we could be that much closer to a cleaner renewable resource. We all know that eventually we are going to run out of oil and in the past we have develop technology out of necessity, so now is definitely the time to invest in the future and improve our well being all around.

In reading Energy Myths and a Brief History of Energy I was not really sure what to think about the statements that he has made. He says that one of the myths is that there is not enough fuel in the ground to last hundreds of years. Now maybe it will not last us hundreds of years but there are still significant pockets of fuel under the surface. The reason people do not talk about them is because they are more expensive to extract then the fuel that we are pulling out of the ground right now. Canada has a huge deposit of oil under it and the Middle East still has much more fuel to extract. The reason we do not pull the oil out of the ground in Canada is because the price of oil has not reached a high enough cost for it to be cost effective. Once oil reaches a certain price then it will be cost effective to extract that oil. He also says that greenhouse gas and global warming are not bad things. Maybe not in a traditional scientific sense because it will mean the rearranging of weather patterns and things will just change and the earth will balance it self out again. But the effect it would have on society and the global economy would be huge. Countries that once had a secure food supply may no longer have that and we have seen the issues that have developed from lack of food or food security. Entire civilizations could be destroyed. The last thing that kind of bothered me was that he said that we do not need to conserve energy because energy can not be destroyed it is just altered. This is true but in a way it is kind of splitting hairs. He says that we need to conserve fuel not energy. Most people are not going to know, realize, or really care about the deference all they need to know is that they need to use less energy to help prevent a major crisis. "Conserve energy" has just been a phrase that the media has coined and it has worked for the most part. Do we really need to make that distinction is it really that important to bring that up and try and teach people a different idea? People understand that energy is what makes the world go around and that fossil fuels are the main force behind that, so they know that its fuel they have to conserve not energy. It just seems a little pointless to really have to make that distinction.

Geothermal

Geothermal technology looks appears that it could really be the power of the future. It is easy to install and requires little to no maintenance. It is more efficient then the conventional way of cooling and heating your house. My question is why has it taken so long to use this technology if it is really as great as it sounds why have I not really heard of this before a few years ago when Washington College put in the technology. Could it be a large conspiracy from the power and oil companies to try and hide this technology away. Or is it that we were just to lazy to get away from our conventional technology. Looking at the price break down its a wonder that very few people have used this technology. Very little maintenance is needed for geothermal but if there is a problem how large of an issue is it to fix it. I would imagine that it would not be a large operation to fix something on the box that is in the house, but something happened to the pipe going into the ground that could be a large problem. What would happen if the pipe had a leak you would have to drill all the way down and replace that pipe. It would be interesting to see the down side of geothermal. What kind of environmental impact would there would there be? Obviously there would be an impact from the drilling and the machines having to drill but most of that could be fixed or replaced very quickly. But would there be any impact with having a pipe in the ground, for small borrowing animals, plants roots systems, insects and other bugs? To me it looks like a great way to conserve energy and lower your power bill and should be used in all houses as much as possible.