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Global Warming
2007 April 20
© 2007, Libertiny Financial LLC
As my Airbus A320 bumped along in turbulence while I was flying back from Washington D.C. to Detroit, one of the underlying questions discussed during my stay in Washington "is humankind the cause of climate change?" took on a more immediate role in my mind. Sure, part of the immediacy was my vigorous attempts at not depositing my glass of juice onto my suit (successful), but there was also the issue of "root-cause" that's always at the forefront of every discussion when you get a bunch of engineers together for a meeting.
Many engineering and scientific studies have been conducted regarding global warming: Is it simply a part of the naturally occurring cycle of the multi-million year geological evolution of Earth? Is it human made? These are the two extremes that bracket the "cause" portion of the issue. There certainly remains uncertainty about the actual cause. Regardless of the final outcome, the reality is that we all could do a lot more in caring for the only planet that we presently inhabit.
Clean Air & Water
A curious thing happened for a meeting held in Washington D.C: we decided to take the politics out of the equation and see what would really help clear up the environment. Mike Cronin, President & CEO of Cognition Corporation, made the point that although the U.S. is looked upon by the world as "...the one required to move first..." with reducing emissions such as CO2, the reality is that from the planet's perspective, the U.S. may do better by helping up-and-coming nations such as China and India to reduce their emissions.
Politics vs. Emissions
Politics being what they are globally, we all recognize that the U.S. needs to lead by example in emissions reduction. Although transportation gets its lumps in the U.S. for emissions, a few folks estimated that even if new, fully-electric car sales grew to 30%, the change in emissions would not be particularly significant. So, power generation is one of the key industries in which to lead change.
Solutions
What power generation solutions do we have that are "green?" Solar, wind, nuclear and ocean power are key technologies available. These technologies would likely augment cleaner coal and natural gas power generation initially. Later, with significant investment in technology, they would then be in a position to supersede coal and gas.
As with everything, there's no free lunch. Presently, the energy density (the amount of energy produced by a power plant per square foot of land used for the plant) is low for solar and wind generation. In other words, you need a lot of land to produce a little power with these technologies in their present state of development. And the difference in land use is in the orders of magnitudes, not some trivial amount.
What about ocean power? I'll be back in Washington D.C. in May to talk about this technology arena. Stay tuned.
Nuclear
The "green" power solution that always garners a strong reaction is nuclear. Couple Three-mile Island in the U.S., Chernobyl in Russia and the popular press, and nuclear energy seems like a non-starter. And it has been since the 1970's in the U.S.
The emotional response to nuclear energy is similar to that when comparing safety records of commercial aircraft and automobiles. We know that flying is the safest form of transportation. But, that doesn't help many folks feel better who are afraid of flying. In cars, we have control and make the decisions which lends us comfort through control and familiarity.
Nuclear energy seems exotic and dangerous as opposed to comfortable and familiar. The reality is the opposite. As with flying, it's highly regulated, and in the U.S. it has an exceptional safety record. Under present conditions, nuclear power appears to be the only reasonable "green" solution to our power needs.
National Security
Any meeting in our nation's capital is going to have an element of security involved in the discussion. Producing our own energy is of critical importance to our nation's security. Reducing our dependency (preferably eliminating it) on foreign supplied fuel is critical in reducing the leverage that foreign governments have over the U.S. The "stick" of foreign supplied fuel comes into play in many policy decisions.
Bottom Line
If we don't adopt new, self-sustaining, "green" power during the next 10 years, the U.S. will loose its position as the global leader and simultaneously become weak from a security perspective. It's time to significantly increase the percentage of power that we produce from our own nuclear power plants.
Besides, if the U.S. doesn't do it, I thought of a nice business plan for Canada: Build a line of nuclear plants along the long U.S./Canadian boarder and become the number one supplier of electricity to the U.S. After all, the late comedian John Candy once said: They (Canadians) are already amassing at our boarder.
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