Everything on the Table for Energy Needs
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The News & Advance
Published: April 17, 2008
With a barrel of oil trading at more than $100, gasoline closing in on $4 a gallon and energy experts positing that production in the world’s oil fields has plateaued, you would think there would be a rush to new sources of power.
Think again.
Politics and that old “N(ot) I(n) M(y) B(ack) Y(ard)” syndrome are still alive and well in the United States. Average Americans are the ones who will be hurt.
Consider two examples, one seemingly benign, the other as contentious as it is commonsensical: wind turbine farms and the study of uranium mining here in Virginia.
First, the wind farms.
The Washington Post reported a few days ago that Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Maryland, has banned commercial development of wind turbines on state-owned lands in the western part of the state, giving in to the demands of environmentalists who despaired the so-called destruction of scenic views.
“While we must continue to explore and make progress on creating a more sustainable and independent energy future for Maryland, we will not do so at the expense of the special land we hold in the public trust,” he told the Post, apparently with a perfectly straight face.
Wind farms have also generated more controversy than power in Virginia, too. Last year, environmentalists in Highland County tried to block a 20-turbine, $60 million project but failed when the State Corporation Commission approved the project in late December.
The NIMBY opponents trotted out a whole list of objections to the project, including fears that wildlife, caves, wetlands, scenic views and rare bats would be harmed by the giant turbines. And though the project’s gotten the state’s OK, it’s still a long way from reality; the environmental permitting process promises to be as long and contentious as the SCC’s.
Europe, however, is far ahead of the United States in its adoption of wind technology. According to General Electric, one of the world’s largest turbine manufacturers, there’s now a global shortage of turbines due to demand in Europe, hardly a haven of anti-environmentalism.
More problematic, though, is the question of uranium mining, a hot topic in Central and Southside Virginia and the halls of the state Capitol.
More than 25 years ago, the General Assembly imposed a moratorium on uranium mining in the state, following a mining proposal by a Pittsylvania County landowner whose farm sits atop one of the largest ore deposits in the country. This year, state Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, introduced legislation simply calling for the study of the issue by a national, blue-ribbon panel of scientists and industry experts.
You would have thought from opponents’ reactions that he’d advocated the torture of puppies and babies.
Though the state Senate approved the study, legislative NIMBYs in the House of Delegates shot it down.
Opponents of wind farms, uranium-mining studies, off-shore drilling, coal gasification plants and other innovative sources of energy simply are not living in the real world. Demand for all forms of energy is not going to decrease; it’s only going to rise.
Developing countries such as India and China are the engines of that demand now; upper tier Third World nations will fuel it in the years to come. Bottom line, it’s a matter of national security for the United States to diversify the sources of its power and to develop new sources of power as quickly as possible.
That’s the real world, and this country’s environmental purists had better start living it pretty soon.
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on April 20, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I appreciate your cogent discussion of my mental capacity, Cosmo. However, take no pride in your grandchildren’s being smarter than I am, but for them to be so much smarter than Greenpeace Founder Patrick Moore and Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog - now that should be enough pride for anyone! Just open up a tiny crack, Cosmo, and listen for a while. Your static is obscuring all reason. Technology exists for recovery of most nuclear waste, and storage has been designated for the balance. The USA is behind in developing a vital technology for energy. Only legal battles waged by Luddites prevent our use of more of that technology.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 20, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Should have known it was you posting such nonsense Randolph. You are an expert at avoiding the big issues and pretending everybody is just dumb for not joining you. I have a deal for you. YOU buy a big piece of land and we will store ALL the nuclear waste at your house. YOU guarantee it’s safety for 10,000 years. YOU legally assume responsibility for any and all damage that “may” ensue. YOU legally absolve anybody else of any and all consequences guaranteeing not to pass the cost on to the tax payers. THEN, I will mortgage my house and go into the Nuclear Power Business myself. Until then.... The old rule MUST apply. You don’t make MORE mess until you can figure out how to clean up the mess you already have. My 2 year old grand children understand this concept Randy. It appears they have intellectually progressed miles beyond you already.
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Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on April 18, 2008 at 11:27 pm
NIMBYs are indeed part of the problem, and the article clearly states valid examples. Something else is awry when studies are shot down. No single approach will solve the energy problem, but each should at least be evaluated. It is particularly telling that a co-founder of Greenpeace (Patrick Moore) is now pro-nuclear power. Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, specifically identifies nuclear power as part of the solution to the climate change problems we now face. Some hard liners are educable! We must consider all options, but refusing to study options and to consider use of public lands for energy solutions are counter-productive, in my view.
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Posted by ( avillage ) on April 18, 2008 at 11:57 am
I understand that the purpose of an editorial is to initiate and support public discourse. To do so would seem to require an articulation of a position with civility. This editorial lacks any compassion toward and is insulting to people (environmentalists) who have a point of view that differs from the editorial writer. Division is what this editorial brings about, not stimulation of dialogue. Insulting people is violent and continues a violent trend.
I may disagree with you, editorial writer, and I may be wrong; it is not harmful for you to say that “you (whomever you is) would have thought...advocated the torture of puppies and babies.” It is not helpful to say that environmentalists “are not living in the real world” twice. Maybe they are living in a different world than you, one they see under assault, often led by corporations in a system of bastardized capitalism where corporations hold more power than citizens. Maybe they are willing to live via alternative means and maybe they see our ecological infrastructure as the underpinning of our economic infrastructure. Without the former, one can’t have the latter. Maybe they don’t believe in balance and the myth of continued growth because maybe both are unsustainable. Maybe so-called environmentalists have something to say. It might not be all correct and it might be important to hear. Energy is not the end all. Maybe they aren’t right; don’t they (we) deserve respect anyway?
I’d ask you, editorial writer, to check out your own anger as I must check out mine. Stop insulting people, please, or please give up writing editorials.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 18, 2008 at 5:25 am
America is 5% of the worlds population and we consume 25% of the worlds resources. It hardly seems fair to blame India and China for our comming demise as a world power. As oil becomes scarcer what do we do? Our government offers tax breaks to purchasers of SUVs, cuts funding to solar research and we engage in a race to see who can get the biggest mortgage to build the biggest house. This is far more than a “NIMBY” problem! This is a dysfunctional culture problem. Where in Lynchburg can someone construct an 80 foot high wind turbine in their back yard? Where can I buy a ticket out of Lynchburg on a high speed train? If I need to go to Boston, from Lynchburg, I must fly to Atlanta first. No fuel wasted there! I have news for you. Uranium mining in Pittsylvania County isn’t going to solve these problems. That is a money making deal for a farmer and a corporation, period. Making Alaska look like Swiss cheese and sucking all the oil out as fast as we can won’t do it either. Neither will drilling off every beach in America. The more we have the more we consume and then it is gone. If not tomorrow, then the next day. And, by the way, when did being an “environmentalist tree-hugger” become a good thing in Virginia or American politics? In the last two elections we chose “Oil Men” to run the government over people who tried to warn us of this impending disaster. So, don’t blame “NIMBY’s”, it’s disingenuous. Put the blame where it belongs. As a culture we feel “entitled” to waste energy. This weekend when your neighbor pulls out in his high powered pick-up pulling his high powered bass boat, ask him why he doesn’t have a row boat. Ask the soccer mom why she is driving an SUV to the school bus stop. Ask yourself why China and India are graduating 200 engineers to our one while we graduate so many “massage therapists” they will soon have to resort to rubbing each other. The term “fools paradise” comes to mind. For all those who don’t believe in evolution, pay attention. WE are the next dinosaurs! Our way of life is about to go extinct. America better hope James Watt, Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior was right when he said before Congress: “Conservation is a waste of time because Jesus is comming back and he will fix everything.” Well, I ain’t holding my breath.
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