Modern life requires four major services to exist; water, food, shelter and energy. The problem is we have a radically expanding population on this planet, estimated to be 9 billion by 2050 and doubling that number in less than 10 years. However, the amount of clean water is finite and declining, irrigable land is limited and normal rain patterns have shifted causing more irrigable land into arid land, shelter is becoming more expensive for the common person, and fossil fuels are declining and are harmful to our environment. In order for a civilization to survive the next century, it must change from a fossil fuel based economy to renewable energy economy.
To this end China is spending billions of dollars annually, mostly acquired from manufacturing most of the products Americans purchase, to building alternative energy generating capacity. They are investing in hydroelectric, geothermal power generation, huge wind power generating all across the country. They are pushing auto manufacturers to produce all electric cars and investing heavily in battery research, development, engineering and manufacturing. They are building a smart power grid to more efficiently transport and use electricity.
America on the other hand is spending a nano amount of government money on alternative energy production. The Republicans want free enterprise to invest in renewable energy production. But why would energy companies want to when they are making billions of dollars in real PROFITS from fossil fuel production? It may be short sighted for a corporation to not invest in new energy sources, but the current management are only looking at the now and what the company can produce in dividends to its shareholders. By the time these fossil fuels run out, they will be dead and gone. To hell with coming generations that will not have the advantages of cheap fossil fuel that current and past generations have enjoyed.
Energy conservation is an immediate process to reduce energy demand, but as a practical matter its impossible in the USA because we have become comfortable with our huge energy consumption. Add to that the new growing middle class of China and India that want all the electronic and transportation products that Americans enjoy. Why shouldn't they? We have kept saying to the third world to become more like us, and when they do, we say slow down you are using too much of the world's energy resources. That will mean Americans will have less energy for their bulging need.
But with all that said, America is bankrupt and a cooperative government/business investment in renewable energy is not possible to the level that would make any real difference in our demand for oil. Oil is fungible, therefore we can't talk about eliminating just foreign oil. So we have to talk about reduction in overall oil consumption.
According to a program on the Science Channel, a botanists has created a way to funnel the exhaust from coal burning power plants through chambers filled with plants that have high capacity to convert the CO2 into oxygen, thus cleaning the exhaust to clean air. However, it takes large amount of acreage next to the plant to perform this task and there is a cost to maintaining all the plants.This is what is called clean coal power generation. The second problem is the plants will expel CO2 at night requiring it to be collected and pumped into underground wells. They have tested it on two power plants with some success, but the operating cost drives up the cost of power to near nuclear power production rates.
If the country did invest in renewable energy, we could reduce our coal, oil and natural gas consumption for power generation to less than 20% of total output in 20 years. We could reduce oil consumption for transportation by producing bio-fuels for trucks and cars. A recent study showed that Sweet Grass can produce higher octane at a lower cost per gallon than corn or other grains for bio-fuels. Sweet grass is a wild grass and requires very little cultivation to grow in abundance and it grows very quickly. It would be better to grow sweet grass in areas where it is difficult to produce our food sources.
We as the human race must address our over population of the planet and our method of generating the power we critically need, unless we move back into caves and burn wood as our energy source.
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