A few years ago I drove the BigShark van of death solo from St. Louis to Park City, UT. I was to deliver the bicycles of the racers who went there to compete in the Master's National Championship road races. It was just me in a Speedo and cowboy hat with $40,000 worth of bicycles crossing central Wyoming. The owner of the Van of Death said the brakes worked (uphill) and the AC worked (in the winter). I crested a mountain pass to see magnificent wind farms as far as the eye could see, their giant, beautiful arms spinning in the wind. It was beautiful alright but knowing that this was providing energy without adding carbon to the air (like the Van of Death) or money to the Middle-East (like the Van of Death) gave me a bit of a lump in my throat (like driving the van of death). The U.S.A., that sleeping giant of potential, is getting off its ass and working towards some semblance of energy independence. Look who is a leader of the pack. Cue the Anthem boys and take off yer hats!In Windy West Texas, An Economic Boom
by Ben Block on July 23, 2008
Growing up in West Texas, Larry Martin became well accustomed to the challenges of living off the land. Raised on a cotton farm outside the small town of Sweetwater, he recalls defending his family's crops from sandstorms after a hard rain. More often, he hoped the region's brutal droughts would not burn the cotton to death...
4 comments:
Sorry Stan the only way we are going to get energy independence is to drill here drill now. Its nice to think we can just go green and use wind and sun, but its not going to happen in our lifetime. we need to build the 45 nuclear plants and continue to drill, but while drilling start exploring the wind farms and natural gas exploration. Did you know that solar panels put out more polutants than coal? Did you know an average windmill puts out 3mw an hr vs. a power plants 2400 an hr? So what it says is we need a hell of a lot of wind mills just to do what one power plant does. Anyway, i agree with you that we need to have our own independence of energy. I think if we incorporate all of our natural resources we could accomplish this within 10 years. But what do i know, i only work for a power plant.
Jeremie
Jeremie,
Thanks for the comments. It's good to hear from you and to hear what you have to say. I need to be clear on some assumptions that may have been made.
1) I am not against drilling on our soil so there was no need to deliver the info with an apology and kid gloves.
2) Reaching total independence is not something I think we will achieve in our lives either.
3) I am pro-nuclear.
4) I fully understand the limitations of the current array of solar PANELS, however steam from solar in the desert is awesome for small communities. Solar panels may someday provide greater energy but should we stop experimenting until they appear by magic?
5) Wind is not as powerful as coal and may never be. Should we do nothing?
I can't understate how important it is to be practical about our current state, as you have done. However, I hope we keep pushing the envelope towards better answers than coal. I hope you are part of the answer, because they (we/U.S.A.) need smart fellers like you.
Be well,
Stan
Sorry, Jeremie, but drill, drill, drill – while a good mantra - simply isn’t going to work. And frankly, I’m all for drilling ANWAR and coastal California just so people will shut up about it. The problem is that oil is a global commodity and unless you are going to nationalize the oil companies, any production will be sold on the global market and won’t make a dent in world-wide supplies.
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Both ANWAR and costal California have been estimated to hold at the max 10 billion barrels each. We know that the US is using about 20 million barrels per day, and importing about 70% of that oil, or 14 billion barrels per day. If the US were to be able to recover 100% of that oil (where typical recovery is more like 50% of Oil In Place) and use it to offset imported oil only, that 20 billion barrels would last for just under 4 years. However we can’t forget that estimates have been for up to 10 years to bring these on line, and if so it will be quite some time before they could even produce 1 million barrels per day. A drop in the bucket of the 84 million barrels a day of worldwide demand. I wrote a paragraph but deleted it on worldwide oil decline issues, but can discuss it if you like. But, clearly, counting on oil is a big problem.
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I’ve got concern about the long term storage of nuclear waste, but more than that, there are reports that say that life cycle assessment analysis of nuclear power plants shows that they are not net energy producers.
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I agree w/ your concerns on solar and wind, without even discussing the issues with coal and climate change. The fact of the matter is that fossil fuels provide an unparalleled energy density and portability that we will not find again. All this leads me to the conclusion that we must look at ways of transitioning to a low-energy culture. That is going to bring about challenges that people are going to have a hard time accepting, when you start talking about the end of the car culture and much greater living densities than the current suburban model.
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James
The story about driving the van of death was great. I too have driven the van, but not nearly as far. Park City,UT and back? That is crazy! I like windmills.
Bryan Wyman
St.Louis, Mo
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