OLEAN -- One of the impediments of approaching old age is the grim realization that much of what you learned in youth is baloney. I refer specifically to the mantra of superiority that was drummed into us in every science and civics class, the one about the United States being far more advanced than any nation on earth in terms of technology.
Maybe it was true in the 1950s, but it sure isn't now -- at least in terms of political will as applied to emerging knowledge.
Just when was it that Europe got so smart?
Time was when, 1) Europeans didn't play well with others in the international sandbox; 2) almost every country on that continent seemed to rely on the United States for money and military protection; and 3) the brain-drain of brilliant European scientists who fled to America on a regular basis ensured our business, education and science entities would continue lapping the field.
Now, Europe is going forward on several different fronts. We are going backward. We couldn't put a man on the moon -- like we did 36 years ago -- if we wanted to. We can barely keep the once-reliable space shuttle fleet from falling apart.
Our science and health communities seem diametrically opposed, with government regulators selling out to Big Pharmaceutical companies through the revolving door of employment on a routine basis and issuing confusing, conflicting, greed-driven dicta about what's good for us and what's not to the point most citizens throw up their hands in resignation and follow their own instincts.
Care to guess how many former federal health regulators in recent years have had to sign conflict of interest waivers in key areas of medicine and health application in order to take more lucrative pharmaceutical jobs and consultant posts? The answer is somewhere north of 700. You think they're going to ruin a fat paycheck by objecting to something dangerous or ineffective headed for our bodies? If you answered yes, it probably takes you an hour-and-a-half to watch "60 Minutes."
The technological pursuit that's got me most worried, however, is energy. In a country where we're running out of oil supply and the largest state gobbles up more than 50 million gallons of gasoline every 24 hours -- 50 million gallons! -- the only thing the current administration can think of to do is pass an energy bill giving Big Oil all sorts of exploration incentives that encourage a rape of the environment, despoilment of pristine wild lands, and the decline of already endangered species.
Sure, we've got plenty of coal, and access to tar sands and oil shale, but the pollution that stems from their use in coming years will further loose enough carbon dioxide to dangerously warm the planet. And don't yammer at me about that climate change being a myth -- it's a scientific consensus.
So, why aren't we doing anything substantial to anticipate the demise of fossil fuels? Europe is.
Spain just passed a law to require new buildings to include solar energy.
In Denmark, a fifth of that country's electricity need is generated by wind. Half a millennium ago, it was windmills on every Danish and Dutch horizon. Now, it's the giant blades of wind turbines. Often, the tiny country of Denmark produces enough power to sell electricity to Germany and Norway. Germany is readying huge wind turbines for much of its coastline. In fact, Europe leads the world in wind power, producing enough megawatts -- almost 35,000 in capacity -- to equal the output of 35 big coal-fired power plants.
According to "Powering the Future," an enlightening article by Michael Parfit in the August issue of "National Geographic" magazine, in all of North America, a continent with a mammoth potential for wind energy, a capacity of only 7,000 megawatts has been reached through wind power. Pretty skimpy. New wind energy projects that are suggested on this continent tend to draw complaints and protests from nearby residents who don't want to mar the view.
Since 1998, according to the American and European Wind Energy Associations, the United States has installed wind energy turbines producing about 5,400 megawatts of electricity. In that same time frame, the European Union has installed about 29,400 megawatts' worth of wind energy machines. Does that mean European countries are more than five times as smart as American utility leaders?
Energy expert Dan Kammen told "National Geographic" the United States is still a hunter-gatherer when it comes to power policy, still mesmerized by searching for new sources of fossil fuel.
"We should probably be more like farmers," he said. "Energy farming is the future."
There is hope. Innovators have developed wind towers about the size of a telephone pole and able to produce about two kilowatts in even a moderate wind. It's called an "energy appliance." You can plug your house appliances into it.
Furthermore, in many states, American utility companies are required by law to pay for power that individuals and small electric co-ops put back into the power grid. Thus, if you live in a windy setting, you should look into this. The inventors are aiming to sell this thing for about $3,000. You would use the wind-generated power when it's needed -- say, for air conditioning and winter heat -- then route it back into the electricity grid when it's not. "This setup could reduce a home's annual power bill to near zero," writes Parfit. "It would pay for itself with energy savings within a few years."
This energy screed of mine has nothing to do with President Bush's foreign policy or the war in Iraq -- except to note that inflation is sure to wreck the already-fragile American economy if we keep paying more than $62 a barrel for oil (as we are sure to do in obeisance to Big Oil), and keep paying out unaccounted for billions in a costly conflict with little resolution in sight.
France, as the TV comedians and cartoonists have it, may be filled with "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" but realize this -- those same Gallic snobs seem to have the oil reliance problem licked. Fully 78 percent of that country's electricity comes from nuclear fission. Granted, nuclear power plants represent the least desirable of alternatives to fossil fuels, but great strides in plant design have been made in recent years.
And there are other alternatives that are promising.
Solar. Biomass (organic fuels, like ethanol additive, made from plants). Methane from decomposing trash and cattle flatulence. Hydrogen fuel cells.
Again, Europe stands out. The European Union sponsors a Clean Urban Transport for Europe program that has clean hydrogen fuel cell busses -- using in some municipalities hydrogen 100 percent produced with renewable energy -- operating quietly in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Hamburg and six other cities.
The "National Geographic" article showed some guy from Oregon who runs his Volkswagen for eight bucks a month on used vegetable oil he gets free from a potato chip shop. The technology is there. We have to start using it on a wider basis. And government has to get involved. The vaunted reliance on market forces is unlikely to be adequate.
"If we don't have a proactive energy policy," New York University energy expert Martin Hoffert told "National Geographic," "we'll just wind up using coal, then shale, then tar sands, and it will be a continually diminishing return, and eventually our civilization will collapse."
If that doesn't bother you, keep pouring your retirement money into Big Oil stocks. In the short run, it's a helluva good investment.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Aug. 9 2005 |