MisterE’s guide to saving energy
I have said it before and I will say it again, I believe that this decade’s defining trend is GREEN. You know how the eighties has its bad hair and heavy metal? The seventies was disco and hairy chests, the sixties was hippies and drugs and so on? I do think saving energy is going to be very important over the next few years… the only interesting thing about this ‘trend’ is it has saving the world in mind.
But as long as there is greed we will never be free. Oil companies make ungodly amounts of money off our dependency on their product. Supply and demand in its basic form. Since it is such a great source of wealth, it attracts the wealthiest most powerful investors. The president, his cabinet, and most people in high positions in government all have some financial stake in oil. For Christ’s sake, Dick Cheney was the CEO of Enron!
Once it was discovered by the beautifully perfect and unbiased science that our dependency on oil is harming the environment so badly that we may have a serious crises on our hands in the near future, those who stood to lose a significant amount of money if we were to cease the use of crude oil did everything in their power to hide the science.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened in this country. Lead (Pb) was a profitable material that was eventually found to be very hazardous to our health. Lots of republicans and powerful politicians had lots of money in lead companies, so when the science came out about the health hazards, they covered it up. It was until 1993 (45 years after the science) that it was finally banned.
I really hope we drop our oil dependency a lot sooner than that. But I fear that the cycle of greed and corruption will never end. We know that the oil companies and the republicans have fought bitterly against alternative energy. In the 90’s they successfully destroyed the electric car program, which was so successfull and so clean that the rich oil barons (including the George Bush) along with the head of every domestic car company put a stop to it by slashing legislation that required car companies to make zero emission vehicles. As a result, global warming ensues, millions of people will probably die from the resulting floods and natural disasters, and the president and his men continue to get richer. But the problem is that oil will be replaced by hydrogen. Soon, hydrogen fuel companies will be making a Christ-load of money, republicans and presidents will be major investors, and soon favorable legislation will ensue, despite the fact that there is already a lot of science and knowledge stating that hydrogen fuel cells can be very dangerous and not a viable alternative. The only difference is that hydrogen cells will fit nicely into the supply demand model that oil currently utilizes. The sun won’t, wind won’t and so on…
If you would like to learn more about this, I HIGHLY recommend the film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” It is well worth it, although, it will probably piss you off.
Other car companies are obviously, very slowly, catching on. Not because of legislation or because of interest in the environment, but because green is the new trend, and people are going to want to spend more money on saving the environment, just like people wanted to spend more money on trashy clothing and bad hair in the eighties.
We are in need of a drastic change. Here is what I propose:
1) Ban all incandescent lighting above a certain wattage. Control the price of florescent bulbs so they don’t get out of hand.
2) Electricity comes from coal plants, which is 65% better for the environment than burning oil, but it could be 100%. Increase funding for solar energy panel efficiency maximization, use them in conjunction with wind farms, hydro power, and thermal heating energy to fuel our electricity.
3) If any car company wants to sell cars in the U.S., they MUST have 5% of all production be dedicated to outputting zero mission vehicles by 2012, 20% by 2020, 50% by 2035, and 100% by 2050.
4) Bio diesel will be fuels sources for machines that still require some kind of fuel.
5) Vertical farms will be a major priority in the U.S.
Soon, our major cities will run only on clean energy. Everything will be electrical, including cars. We can charge them at home with a standard AC 110 volt outlet, the batteries will last for a very long time, the cars will be quick and silent, and most importantly, they will emit no pollution. Coal plants will be a thing of the past. Low income housing and apartment buildings will run on all natural energy. Heating will be conducted through pipes than run deep underground and absorb thermal heat from the Earth, solar panels will adorn the roofs, stoves and heaters will be electric, and so on…
Doesn’t it sound futuristic and nice?
Enjoy.