Making for Change

Oil or gas? Electricity or natural gas? Hydrogen cells or electric vehicles? Yin or Yang?

Over time we went from wood burning for heat and steam creation for electric generators, to coal, coke and then oil. Natural gas came later. Internal combustion engines burned volatile petroleum based gasoline. Later, much later, electric batteries came into use to power electric motors to propel cars.

Heating our homes was wood, coal, natural gas and electricity. How the electricity was produced was from varying means, all burning something to create heat. Of course thermal sources from earth’s volcanic activity was used for heating, too. Hydroelectric dams were another source for powering generators in the production of electric power.

Change. Constant change pressing us forward to different methods and resources and processes. Science helps enormously in this endeavor. Science also warns us of pending problems and catastrophe.

Global warming is one of those catastrophes in waiting. Destruction of the planet’s life cycle due to atmospheric pollution. We must change how we heat things, generate electricity and simply find the power we need to do the work society demands.

Renewable energy is available: thermal, wind, solar, hydro dams. Not enough to do everything we want or need. But a great start, especially magnified by science and engineering.

Hydrogen power cells is one of those. Nuclear energy is another. Anything that does not require extracting fossil fuels and the burning of them to pollute the air. Actions have consequences. Fossil fuels pollute the atmosphere and threaten our extinction. Nuclear energy of course threatens extinction by another means.

Engineering and science coupled have amazing power. The human mind has extraordinary power. Using these three together can and most probably will solve our energy problems.

The fossil fuel industry doesn’t agree because it means the end of its ‘business as usual’ work record. But we must. We must find better ways to supply the energy we need. Perhaps the fossil fuel industry should adopt the broader label of energy industry and help with long-term change?

Curbing mining, fracking and drilling for fossil fuels is a good first step in pressing change on a recalcitrant industry. They have been coddled long enough and earned their trillions of dollars pushing their own self-interest. Now the interest is for the public. The industry must follow ready or not.

Thank you, President Biden, for reversing recent energy legislation that favored the fossil fuel industry. It is time all of us to awaken to reality and prepare for the future. With eyes wide open this time, not wide shut as before.

February 1, 2021