Happy Birthday! America. As we begin the second half of another trying
year, my feelings are that we are in for some very difficult times ahead. The enormous issues of climate change, energy
security and affordability, and the inevitable transition from fossil fuels to
renewables are again being held hostage by a handful of rich old men who have
no sense of what the reality of the outside world is, other than their private
domains of money and power. This has
always been the case, but their actions and inactions today are leading to the
slow demise of sustainability of our environmental, economic, and social
systems, on a global scale. The other
99% can only sit back and watch. Good
luck!
As for our energy situation right now, the
fossil fuel and nuclear industries continue to dominate the conversations with
their wealth and buying power over almost all media and social platforms. The new generations of nuclear power they are
pushing for, nor fusion, will not help in the near term, nor will it make any
significant impact on the energy supply in the future. On a positive spin the current prices and
constraints on all fuels worldwide, are bringing into focus the understanding that
renewable hydrogen is the most viable solution, and it is finally beginning to
make some major headway. Just in the
last year or so, the world is moving toward making hydrogen from water, wastes,
and carbohydrates at an incredible exponential rate. Not so much here in the US, as the
stranglehold of information and dollars by the major energy players continues
to play out; but throughout the world, hydrogen as a transportable fuel for
transportation, industry, and energy storage is gaining enormous traction. Just as we move oil, gasoline, natural gas,
and propane worldwide, we can move hydrogen from areas where it is produced by plentiful
renewables to where it is needed; and it can even be produced locally for fleet
transportation, powering new and existing gas turbines, manufacturing, storage
for microgrids, etc. It will not replace
batteries for some appropriate uses, but it can complement and supplement
renewable storage. Its uses are so huge
and varied, compared to oil technology. We
already have hydrogen-powered aircraft, ships, trains, buses, steel and
concrete production, repowering old generation plants, new ways to electrolyze
water, new fuel cell technology…the lists go on and on. There is an amazing
shift in investment and actual development of various hydrogen technologies now
in Northern Europe, Australia, China, Southeast Asia, all over…even
Greece! This transition is happening, and
will eventually become mainstream, but it will take time. Meanwhile, blah, blah, blah here in the US. Too expensive, too dangerous, and too
disruptive to the current economic system!
I remain frustrated at what I see taking place in this country, and I may not be around to see that once again America’s supposed great technologies have been wasted on creating wealth for the few as we lag behind the rest of the world. But maybe we will get to Mars!
