The Country Curmudgeon — A crisis of will
By Roy Hicks
Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:53 AM PST
Much has been said over the last several years about the “energy crisis.” This was first manifested during the early 1970s when OPEC tried to strangle us by raising oil prices to the point it created long lines and semi-rationing at the gas pumps. More recently, it was demonstrated with outrageous increases in gasoline prices following Hurricane Katrina. Now, gas prices are creeping up again.
Despite the moaning about “dependence on fossil fuels,” there are still huge amounts of coal, oil and natural gas to carry us through the next 50 years or more while we seek permanent solutions.
The real solution to the energy shortage is limitless amounts of electricity.
Given that, we can have anything we want: plenty of power to heat and light our homes, supply industry, move public transportation and generate hydrogen to drive environmentally clean fuel-cell vehicles.
The problem is how to get it. There are several ways we could do that right now, and the answer isn’t wind or solar power. “Wind power” can never generate any more than a puff of flatulence, and creating a solar grid large enough to drive the country would mean laying out enough present solar panels to cover the entire state of Arizona.
Clean, new coal- and gas-fired plants coupled with expanded exploration and oil drilling could easily tide us for the interim if only the “greenies” would get out of our way.
The long-term solution lies with nuclear technology.
First, with fission reactors, which have proven safe and reliable. The only significant failure was at Chernobyl in 1986 because, in building their reactors, the Russians cut corners and tried to do it on the cheap.
The widely-ballyhooed 1979 Three Mile Island accident was a whiff in a whirlwind that amounted to nothing and injured nobody.
The French currently generate 90 percent of their total electricity from atomic power plants of American design and have never had an accident.
We should have been building these and more oil refineries for the last 30 years. The problem here is knee-jerk resistance by environmentalists, and what is now known as the NIMBY syndrome (“not in my back yard”).
The eventual solution to the “energy crisis” is the development of controllable nuclear fusion: harnessing the awesome power of the sun.
This technology is still in its infancy, but some experts say, with an all-out international effort, this could be achieved within the next 30 or so years. That would solve all our energy problems.
Roy Hicks, a Payette resident, writes a weekly column for the Argus Observer. Comments or questions for Mr. Hicks can be directed to: Roy Hicks, Argus Observer Newsroom; 1160 S.W. Fourth St., Ontario, OR 97914. The views and opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily represent those of the Argus Observer
