Energy Gorillas

Oil as been the energy gorilla of the 20th century. Oil will not the energy gorilla for America anymore.

Let's look in the closet. The Zoo closet. What energy Gorillas are in America's zoos. Coal and nuclear. That is it. Solar, chimpanzee. Wind, chimpanzee. Ethanol, pygmy monkey.

Coal with CO2 sequestering. Possible, but expensive. Nuclear, possible but very little local / American technology available to implement. Guess what, we will have to go France for this technology. If I recall correctly, they get about half of their power from nuclear energy. What about the Achilles heal of nuclear waste. See this quote from Frontline:

From the beginning the French had been recycling their nuclear waste, reclaiming the plutonium and unused uranium and fabricating new fuel elements. This not only gave energy, it reduced the volume and longevity of French radioactive waste. The volume of the ultimate high-level waste was indeed very small: the contribution of a family of four using electricity for 20 years is a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. It was assumed that this high-level waste would be buried in underground geological storage and in the 80s French engineers began digging exploratory holes in France's rural regions.

So, with French technology (originally Westinghouse technology from the U.S.) my family of four would make about a coffee cup of waste in a life-time. Nuclear Waste Storage in France.

Let's look at Yucca Mountain. First, we don't reprocess waste in the U.S. since it is illegal -- illegal recycling, cool. So we have more waste than the French since they allow recycling. That proves the French are smarter than Americans, by the way. No, it really proves that the military industrial complex controls this country. Figure that out on your own. But, I digress. We take the waste, put it in glass (glassification), put that glassy material in a canister made of a superalloy, and then bury it in a geological formation. Could something go wrong in 10,000 years. Yea, an asteroid could hit the world exploding our planet into a million pieces and thus releasing radiation on any alien passing through our galaxy that has not developed a Geiger counter. Don't laugh, it could happen. Of course, anything could happen. But, the real question is ... how probable are all the bad scenarios in impacting human life in the future.

Now, here is the correct question, which energy gorilla does the least damage to the planet. All energy gorillas hurt the planet. It is part of humanity's legacy. The question is does the coal gorilla or the nuclear gorilla cause the least damage.

First, lets forget the idea of permanent storage of nuclear waste. Let's just say we are going to store it for 10,000 years and then we are going to develop a permanent plan. That takes away the argument that we are just dumping it somewhere and letting future generations, which obviously won't be as advanced as us, to deal with it. We will set up a directive. We will take credit for the solution in advance.

Coal. Coal equals CO2, lots of it. Of course, we can pump it into the ground for temporary storage --you know, in geological formations like they do it already to keep oil wells spitting out their last few drops of oil. When the next ice age comes, we pump it back out into the environment and save the planet. Shoot, by then perhaps we will know how to use nuclear waste to warm the planet. We should take credit for all of this in advance.

The oil gorilla (OG) is dying. It is our job to decide which Gorilla is to lead us into the future, the Coal Gorilla (CG for short) or the Nuclear Gorilla (NG). Or perhaps, some combination of CG and NG. The only question I have is ... how high do gasoline prices have to go until American realizes that good old OG is on her death bed. She was great while she lasted. Look at all the money she saved us on public transportation, refurbishing the cities, and building energy efficient buildings and homes, etc. Life was good with OG.