Can Crisis of Energy Crisis be Profitable to Politics

This article is an energy review and update, as well
as a critique of US and Western energy policies, or a lack thereof.
This is not about Eastern energy policies because they will follow our
political and market leads in dealing with a necessary and long overdue
shift out of the archaic energy infrastructures that have been
perpetuated for corporate profits and political profiteering.

Let's
talk about energy first, and this is very old information that is
continually suppressed and marginalized by the existing energy
politics. The sun, and wind are free. Oil, coal, gas and nuclear are
NOT free - and they are very toxic. Just as we had the foresight to
build hydroelectric dams we must shift into solar, wind and hydrogen
technologies. Solar and wind technologies have less ecological downside
than even the hydroelectric dam systems by the way. Hydrogen burns to
leave water, not carbon, and hydrogen can be easily created with solar
or wind electric generation

What's
so good about free energy? It can be easily collected and added to the
grid, or used in free standing private and corporate energy supply
projects. Windmills and photovoltaic panels make good sense and there
are even less expensive ways to gather the free energy that is present
over most of the planet, most of the time.

Sunlight can also be
reflected or focused onto water pipes that create steam to drive
electric generators in the same way as the nuclear power plants have
done - but without nuclear accidents and the cost of obtaining and
maintenancing highly toxic nuclear isotopes that are a strategic risk
and target in themselves.

Sunlight
can also be reflected by mirrors to heat large mass structures with
built in updraft wind tunnels - since heated air rises - to drive
electric generator fans well into the night.

Photovoltaic cells
are coming down in price - they work very well and inexpensively. There
are also THERMOvoltaic cells that work with heat instead of direct
sunlight, and they are continually being refined. They both use FREE
heat and sunlight.

Windmills work well, they need not be the
huge, corporately constructed and maintenanced models. Private
individuals, like farmers, can build and easily operate these to drive
generators. The generators could be made more available with hookup
kits that go directly to the power grid to provide the farmer with
extra income from energy companies. And individual windmills can
provide beautiful variations, as sculpture on the landscape. Esthetics
awards could even be given for originality and uniquely creative
designs - they don't all have to be like the repetitive designs shown
now.

Just as we shifted out of burning coal for heat in the 50s,
we must shift out of petroleum, gas, coal and nuclear as much as
possible for cleaner, less expensive, less strategically manipulated
energy supplies. The sadly renewed threats to use more coal, gas,
petroleum and nuclear are corporate propaganda for profits and
continued political influence. Do you know how many politicians just
can't say no to oil money contributions?

Certainly we can use
those fossil fuels, but they should be at 10% of our energy supply, not
90% of our energy supply. The airlines industry should be
congratulated, especially Virgin and other leaders, for looking at
energy saving alternatives. The automobile industry has repeatedly
succumbed to big oil's economic and political pressures for decades.

About
the petroleum propaganda that all of our plastics that are used in
every industry MUST come from petroleum - this is absolute rubbish. We
should be using ceramics, glass, and polymers that are created from
other than petroleum derived substances. As much as possible they
should be either easily recyclable or biodegradable or both. The
numbers of these materials technologies that are marginalized by
petroleum politics and profiteering is as great as the energy
technologies.

In glass and ceramics alone, made predominantly
from silicon (sand), we could create more durable building products,
with less fire risk, less risk of rot, better insulative properties,
better electroconduction technology properties, etc. than plastic
siding and oil tar based shingles and paints.

Silicon is the most
plentiful element on Earth, and many of its substances are almost free
for the gathering. Brick, tile, siding products and roofing products
made from ceramics and glass compositions are already on the markets
but they are being sold rather expensively at present as designer
alternatives to the older more petroleum based materials. The price can
come down with mass production and marketing.

Local building
codes must be forced to uniformly support newer building materials and
technologies, not just the same old technologies that builders foist
off as expensive, traditionally accepted status symbol designs. Just as
the prices of these newer materials decrease, so should the taxation
for control on the use of toxic technologies increase.

Leaders
like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pope Benedict and Al Gore, who are actively
using newer and less toxic technologies should be congratulated. The
man or corporation who popularizes an inexpensive electric automobile
should receive the Nobel Prize.

These
solar, wind, and hydrogen technologies should be supported as
humanitarian works by the billionaires. Alleviating the worldwide
politics and profiteering of big oil, with it's toxic residue and
stimulation of politically based wars worldwide, would be far more
beneficial to mankind, other species and the planet than any other
humanitarian endeavor I can imagine.

Arthur Browning

Arthur Browning began his career teaching technical writing in a small
midwestern university for 15 years. He later edited and published a
national professional journal for some ten years. He is now an
investor. His interests include art collecting, web marketing, writing.

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