Energy is the prototype for the clown of a thousand faces. Energy is heat. Energy is light. Energy is an electrical storm, a hurricane, a tornado, a warm day.

Energy is now. Energy is stored. E=MC2. . energy is mass times the square of the speed of light. You, yourself, are a sweet little bundle of energy. Energy is everything.

Our energy comes from the sun. All of it. The exclusive source of the past, present and future. There is a tiny, tiny bit from the stars, but a decimal point and far too many preliminary zeros keep it from being significant.

Some energy is stored potential. Water behind a dam. Wood for the fireplace. Coal, petroleum and natural gas. Those last three are fossil energy – hundreds of thousands of years ago, millions of years ago, energy from the sun fell upon the earth, was made substantial by life forms and stashed away. Contemporary civilization is based on the discovery of uses of the stuff. We depend on it for contemporary civilization. We can’t do without it. Well, perhaps that’s not quite true. We could be in serious difficulty if it is true.

Wait a minute – who, actually says we can’t live without it? On what basis do they say that? Oh – those guys. The ones profiting from fossil fuel consumption.

What does energy do? Runs your bloody computer for one thing, mate. Keeps your house in an equable state. Cooks your supper. Hauls you about the earth or maybe just to work. Energy does a thousand thousand things.

We don’t rely entirely on fossil fuel now. France gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear reactors, and they run their very nice public transportation system on it. In the northwest we have a heavy reliance on hydroelectricity – water stored, most of it from last winter’s rainfall.

Hydro is so doggone useful. What if we had lots, lots more of it? We’ve been pointing to the existence of vast quantities of energy in the sea at our doorstep and the winds coming ashore. Energy orders of magnitude greater than we know how to use. It could replace fossil fuel almost entirely. If fossil fuels are irreplaceable, it’s for chemical purposes – feed stocks for fertilizer, plastics, agricultural chemicals; a thousand things now in our daily life. We need not, probably ought not be wasting it by simply burning it, which is what we do for electrical generation and the internal combustion engine..

It’s been said in this column before and I’m going to say it again. Using fossil fuel as carelessly as we do is downright dangerous to health, welfare and prosperity. It isn’t the energy content but the chemical conversion when we combust it, or sometimes in chemical conversion processes, as when we chemically disassemble natural gas to obtain hydrogen, leaving CO2 as waste to be disposed of in the environment..

Carbon is the problem. Carbon is a restless element, one that badly wants to be married to other atoms. Fossil fuels have carbon happily married to hydrogen and tucked away. Let loose by combustion it hooks up with oxygen, and CO2 finds its way into that layer that traps heat within the planet’s atmosphere. We are upsetting the careful balance that we ought to desire above all things – that balance is what provides our health, welfare and prosperity.

Thirty years ago President Carter called for a national response to the dangers of our situation. We didn’t do it. We chickened out. I don’t know how much we’ll pay for that. The bill is on the way. But we haven’t started, even yet, to respond. You know what happens when you keep piling onto the credit card and not to worry about payment, don’t you? What makes you think this is different?

We are going to live without petroleum or we will not live at all. If petroleum is in finite supply and if we continue to exponentially increase our consumption of it, that conclusion is forgone. I’m old. I’ll be gone by then. Likely so will you. It’s kids who will pay. Other than economists and corporate flacks, those examining the situation are alarmed. Not enough of us yet to alter the situation. Time for some of the rest of us to weigh in. Not the other guy. You and I.

The potential for escape from fossils is right there. How tough a job is it going to be for OSU engineers to begin harvesting the freely available energy that’s right there offshore? A doughnut shaped device bobbing up and down on an anchored straw – if they can keep the barnacles off the straw what problem? It’s engineering, not science. We’ve been successfully using the science for generations. How about diverting a tiny, tiny percentage of that flow of federal bucks in the engineer’s direction instead of throwing it all at some of the goofy projects they are so abundantly engaged in?

Now I think upon it, those barnacles are probably a problem already solved. A couple days ago I watched a video about surfers and some truly enormous waves slamming into Hawaii. They went on and on about some off-shore buoys that told them hours in advance what was coming into that beach, giving sponsors an opportunity to whistle up surfing competitors from around the world. Had to be the same principle, a donut bobbing on a straw. Heck, if they can do it in tropical seas, what problem off the Oregon coast? OSU engineers are gonna find out what problem. Go, guys, go! Go fast!!!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 8:08 am and is filed under Energy Future, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.