Have you ever had to make a decision where there was no good answer? A decision where no matter what you decided there were bad consequences? We humans are always making these types of decisions. The sad part of this is, we as a species, usually don’t consider all of the outcomes. The bottom line is we are destroying our home/planet according to many scientist and we are not quite ready to move.
Currently the world, consisting of just under 8 billion people, is consuming immense amounts of power. Our energy sources are far and wide.
We burn (our world) about 97 million barrels of oil per day. (42 Gal/barrel)
We burn 132 million cubic feet of natural gas in a year or about 48 cubic feet/person/day
We use about 70,000 metric tons of uranium per year or about 1/2 pound/person/year
Wind and solar add a relatively small amount of energy to the system.
Let’s look at these sources and their benefits and pitfalls.
OIL and GAS
Close to 40 billion tons of CO2 are released into the air from the burning of fossil fuels. Before fracking, there was minor damage to the onsite environment from oil wells. Fracking has changed all that and currently many communities are struggling with contaminated groundwater issues. Oil extraction in the oceans has created several disasters that are still recovering.
NUCLEAR
Stripping the land to mine Uranium is a serious problem. Many of these mining sites become contaminated and are not usable after mining has ceased. Water, possibly the most important resource we have, is in peril at any major mining site. It takes enormous amounts of earth to harvest small amounts of uranium. A square kilometer of earth, 30 cm deep, will typically contain a ton or more of uranium, uncovered by strip mining. There also is the problem of disposing of the nuclear waste from the reactor.
SOLAR
Solar panels provide relatively clean energy for up to 25 years. After that they become disposable trash. There is also the problem of manufacturing these panels. Typically it takes about 3 years, depending on sun factors, for a typical solar panel to become carbon neutral. Use of these panels on home sites is a reasonable idea; use of these panels on massive, mega acre plots, is insanity! I compare it to the coal industry strip mining. You bury thousands of metal post in the ground secured by concrete (another bad co2 contributor), strip the land of usable top soil, destroy potential watersheds, spray with herbicides to control plant growth and in 20-odd years, abandon it.
WIND
When a large windmill is installed, it requires a 50 ft round base x 10 ft deep concrete pad. When the windmill has reached retirement, that pad of cement will remain in the ground. Very little of the device is recyclable so it ends up in the ground as trash. A typical windmill has a life of about 20-25 years, at which time it becomes trash to be buried.
Like I said in the beginning, there is no free lunch. If we wish to continue on our current path, we will need more and more energy. Fusion seems to be far away, and a few scientists believe it will never happen. I personally believe we will figure it out in the next 10-20 years, but it will take time to move over to a new source of energy. The bottom line is, we need to find our way soon as a world.
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