STATE OF MY HEAD summer 2023
This past year has been very trying
on me, with my hip replacement, sciatica, carpal tunnel, and just plain getting
old! I reflect on all the time I spent educating myself on environmental and
energy issues so I could teach and educate others as to the importance and
complexity that these two factions have on us and the entire global community.
I am proud to have been on the “right side of history” in my teaching and my
activism, culminating in the final decommissioning of our local nuclear power
plant. I wish I could have done more because so much more remains to be done. I am tired, retired, and passing on those
battles to the next generation. Good
luck!!
Today, we are finally beginning to
feel the enormous impacts and consequences of climate change, I agree with
James Hansen who said the scientific community failed to be more aggressive in
stressing an understanding of the phenomenon and got bogged down in the
nitpicky semantics debate...greenhouse effect, global warming, climate change,
and now global boiling. The task of explaining the complex environmental,
economic, social, technological, and political interactions was overwhelmed by
“Big Money” propaganda reducing the threats to a polar bear on an ice floe, or
a coastal village on some faraway island being flooded. What wasn’t stressed is
that the changes are a continuum and are occurring at an exponential rate. I am
distressed that the cares and attitudes of those with the ability to create
changes are bogged down by ignorance and money.
So many people worldwide will suffer in so many ways. Interestingly, money is now becoming a
concern with the various insurance industries leading the way.
I am an optimist in the survival of
the environment (we’re not destroying our environment, but changing it) and
humanity (civilizations have come and gone due to changes), though I think we
have already gone beyond the tipping point, and the chaos we see in the world
today will on only continue to escalate. As old sayings go…“Close that barn
door…" ”We’ve already fallen off the cliff but…” “Pay attention, Billie Joe!”
As for my work with renewable
energy, I am pleased that a lot of what I fought for is slowly coming to
fruition, despite the continued resistance by the Big Money (the fossil fuel,
nuclear, industrial-military complex, etc.) which has and probably will continue
to be a major guiding force in global politics. Solar and wind are now cheap,
efficient, and more sustainable than previous technologies. Their potential
continues to shine in new directions and applications all over the world.
The next major obstacle to be
overcome is the understanding and commercial deployment of Hydrogen
technologies. The development of hydrogen technologies throughout the world
today is rather stunning, in spite of the ignorance and manipulations of
policies here in the US. Europe, China, Australia, India, and Africa are all
rapidly moving forward with commercialization because they are real solutions
to the enormous problems of fossil fuels. One positive of Putin’s war is the
realization that nations don’t have to be dependent on imported oil or gas.
Hydrogen can be produced locally from
water (H2O!) for local use or export; it can be made using local
renewable energies; it can be combusted in engines, turbines, and furnaces for
industry, commercial, and residential uses; or transformed to electricity via
fuel cells. It can be used in transportation (ships, airplanes, trucks, fleet
vehicles, and maybe eventually in automobiles), and most importantly, it can be
created and stored for electricity generation at times when the sun doesn’t
shine, the wind doesn’t blow, and there is peak demand which today overwhelms
grid capability. It will eventually be cheaper than the price of gasoline which
depends on finding oil, extracting it, transporting/importing it, refining it,
and even more transportation. It will ease the burden of huge powerlines
amplifying electric grids. It ultimately
reduces our dependence and being at the mercy of Big Money politics and their
economic shenanigans. The case for the Hydrogen Economy (replacing the OIL
Economy) was identified 30+ years ago. The shift is coming, but we’re still
battling the power of Big Money wanting the continued path toward a Nuclear
Economy. For example, in the US today, the nuclear industry is garnering large
portions of the federal hydrogen research money with the promise that the future
generation of small reactors will be the "best" way to produce hydrogen
fuel.
The nuclear industry continues its hoax
that nuclear power is cheap, clean, and necessary. The first of two Vogle
plants in Georgia just went online this week…7+? years late, and 2+? Times over
budget. Originally estimated at $8-14 billion, the final tab is over $34
billion, and all this just to serve about half a million customers in the local
utility. We’ll see if and when the second unit comes online. New big reactors
like this are dead, but the industry says it can do better with small modular
reactors which are still under development and promise to be cheaper and safer.
Of course, this all looks sort of good on paper, but it is still 7+ years
before the first one is ever built, tested, and licensed. This will have no
impact on our desperate need to produce carbon-free electricity. In addition, nothing, again, is said about
the high-level nuclear wastes that would be generated, to which there is NO
solution other than putting them in cans and watching over and maintaining them
for thousands of years. Not going to happen, in spite of all the dollars that
continue to be spent in R&D and lining executive’s pockets. But wait! The
ultimate solution is here…although it may be some 20-30+ years away. FUSION!
Major breakthroughs recently towards unlimited, clean, cheap energy! Again,
another hoax to funnel billions of dollars toward Big Money. The biggest
piece of information missing is that even if constructed, a fusion reactor,
would only produce HEAT (not electricity or gasoline or whatever kind of
energy we need) just like today’s fission reactors, and require expensive and
complex supportive infrastructure. The problem of extracting that heat (the
power of the sun right here on Earth!) is technically daunting, and the
ultimate cooling water needed is mind-boggling. The fuel necessary is deuterium
(one molecule out of every 6,500 molecules of seawater is deuterium). It would
be extracted by expensive chemical hydrolysis, with a waste product of hydrogen
atoms! Gee! I thought simple electrolysis of water was too expensive and too
difficult. ?? China now has a pilot plant that electrolyzes plain seawater.
The dream of a green, sustainable,
renewable, and equitable energy future is slowly edging towards reality. Just
like climate change, the transition is not immediate, but an evolution of
ideas, technology, commercialization, and most important, political will. I
remain an optimist. For now, I am content to sit back and look at what is going
on in the world with a full range of emotions…joy, frustration, but also a lot
of humor. It is what it is, and I’ve done what I can.
Let the sun
shine and the wind blow!
