Response to Rep Gary Bies recent comments in Notes From The West Wing
David Lea
I found your recent comments on Green Energy to be very misleading. You
state that you are all for Green Energy, but that it would be too
expensive and would not create new jobs. According to the very
thoroughly researched article in November's issue of Scientific
American, the only logical direction our energy supply can pursue is
"renewable energy", that is, those energy systems for which we do not
need to be digging up or harvesting material. These energy sources are:
Solar Power, Wind Power and Geothermal. The article makes it very
clear that once installed, these power sources quickly outdistance oil,
coal, biofuels, nuclear and hydro-electric since they just keep giving
more power without having to "fetch" the fuel from some other place.
The combination of these three could, with a reasonable and sustained
"investment" (why call it a "cost") become the very backbone of our
national and world wide power systems in a surprisingly short time. All
our other fuel sources are drying up at a much faster rate than the oil
and coal industries want us to believe. And even if we have another 50
years, we know that this kind of constantly replenished energy is the
only solution that will stand the test of time. We are very close to
running out of U235 and Thorium would not be far behind. We are
probably already on the downhill slope of the peak of oil production
world wide, just as we peaked out in 1973 for the United States. Coal
is so destructive not only to our atmosphere, but also to one of our
most vital resources: Natural Beauty, the foundation to the worlds
number one industry: tourism. Coal mining is now one of the greatest
destroyers of our water, soil and forest resources as well.
These kinds of renewable energy installations can be put up almost
anywhere and don't need to be centralized. The roofs and sides of
existing buildings, in our own front and back yards, etc. This would
lead to a much more widely distributed work force installing,
maintaining and updating this equipment, plus failure of one windmill
here or a photo voltaic assembly there will barely effect the overall
system, whereas centralized power plants make the system very vulnerable
to shutdowns.
I urge you to obtain this issue of Scientific American. It represents
one of the clearest and best supported surveys of the whole energy issue
that I have seen yet.
It is also available on their website in a little different form, which
I do not find as informative, but which contains most of the charts and
graphs that make their explanations so clear.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=powering-a-green-planet
Jobs in manufacturing require a very great reinvestment. These jobs
have left the US because they were sold off in the 80's to the low
bidders in South East Asia. We have a long way to go to regroup and
fire up the manufacturing engines in this country!
Thanks for listening.
Dave Lea, Fish Creek
PS I plan to submit this letter to our local papers as well.