No need for green

The decades long obsession hard core leftists and everyday liberals have had with alternative energy culminating in President Obama's energy starvation policies in favor of "green energy" is based on false premises all around.

Just taking for a moment the whole Global Warming debate and boiling it all down it becomes a matter of burning fossil fuels. The dubious inference that C02 as a byproduct of burning oil and coal is the main cause of Global Warming is the only arrow in their quiver. Almost daily a new story emerges that casts even more doubt on the C02 based computer models that have promised the end of the world. It seems Global Warming, or rather, climate change is a natural, cyclical process.

Without Global Warming the Greens would have to rely on pollution and tragic accidents to make a case against fossil fuels. This may not be enough. Accidents are just that. Accidents are understandable. Pollution is probably not enough to turn the public against fossil fuels since people can see with their own eyes that the environment (yes, with controls, regulations and government rules) is getting better all the time. In my state they discontinued vehicle emissions inspections a decade ago. Air quality doesn't fall below thresholds that dictate such a requirement.

The reason CAGW and pollution are so important to the Greens is because the depletion angle of peak oil has been smashed. In a recent story at Salon.com "Everything you've heard about fossil fuels may be wrong" by Michael Lind dispels the notion that the U.S. is hopelessly dependent on foreign sources of oil and that we must move toward alternative energy. Yeah, this was at Salon.com. I know, who would have guessed...

FTA
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago.


Natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide than coal, can be used in both electricity generation and as a fuel for automobiles.


The implications for energy security are startling. Natural gas may be only the beginning. Fracking also permits the extraction of previously-unrecoverable “tight oil,” thereby postponing the day when the world runs out of petroleum. There is enough coal to produce energy for centuries. And governments, universities and corporations in the U.S., Canada, Japan and other countries are studying ways to obtain energy from gas hydrates, which mix methane with ice in high-density formations under the seafloor. The potential energy in gas hydrates may equal that of all other fossils, including other forms of natural gas, combined.


If gas hydrates as well as shale gas, tight oil, oil sands and other unconventional sources can be tapped at reasonable cost, then the global energy picture looks radically different than it did only a few years ago. Suddenly it appears that there may be enough accessible hydrocarbons to power industrial civilization for centuries, if not millennia, to come.

The realization that we as a society need not rush to the green side needs to have an advocacy and a bullhorn. The green "save the environment" mantra has permeated everything. Every corporation, even the energy companies - the enemy - pay lip service to the greens. There's nothing wrong with being an advocate for clean air and water, but that doesn't mean we should be made to feel guilty about the lifestyle we've created with the viable energy options we enjoy now.

The costs of propping up green energy while at the same time stifling domestic fossil fuel production always falls on the poorest among us. The average person will not be able to afford to fly, or even take a long vacation by car. Major industries will wither (and millions will lose their jobs) during a forced transition. This isn't even taking into account the unreliability of so called green energy. Simply put the technology is just not ready for the utopian dreams of the greens - the reality of a green revolution will be a nightmare for millions.

One day the age of oil and the age of coal will end, but it will be when the magic of solar energy is actually realized (or some other such magic). We need to fight vigorously the forces that would diminish our quality of life with lies about man-caused global warming or the preposterousness that C02 is a dangerous pollutant.

Read the whole story - it's eye opening



CW