Energy Plank

As I continue my consideration of running for President in the “Chance for Sanity Party”, I am explaining my stance on certain critical issues.

This release of my views concerns the energy we need to run a modern and an evolving green economy and society. In the past we depended almost entirely on fossil fuels for power. Almost all our electricity was generated with coal or oil. Now we are 19% coal, 24% oil, 40% natural gas, 10% nuclear, 3% water, 3% wind, and 1% solar. In the immediate future we will be far less dependent on coal and oil and farther out, natural gas. I would support new generation nuclear which is less dangerous and leaves less used fuel to store. The new generation is sodium cooled and unlike one cooled with water, won’t melt down in case of some mishap. Water power is not only unlikely to increase it will probably decrease as dams are torn down. The green aspect of our rapidly increasing demands for electricity means we will be growing wind and solar plants as fast as possible while replacing fossil generation. Geothermal plants will need to be built to supply 20%. These will be in the volcanic areas in the West.

The increased demand will mainly come from electric and hybrid vehicles. Within 20 years over half of vehicles sold will be electric. Much of the increased vehicular electrical demand will be at night when the local wind power may not be available and no solar power. To overcome this shortage we will need to have a better grid to make use of where the sun is shining in the morning or evening and where the wind is blowing. Various electrical storage technologies will need to be developed for use at night. Natural gas units will be needed at peak times and when generation and storage are insufficient to meet demand.

We will need nuclear units for the next several decades to provide a green base load for a dependable and constant capacity. We must build a dependable direct current grid to move electricity around the country. Much of our current grid needs to be updated and new lines added to areas which are not sufficiently covered or lack redundancy.

We will need some petroleum for fuel and chemical uses for a few more decades but it is a finite resource and we should be starting to conserve it instead of selling it to other countries. The new methods we use to produce petroleum should be the least sensitive areas. Off-shore production has been shown to be disastrous and permanently damaging to the environment. A two percent revenue increase will be necessary for subsidies and guaranteed loans.

More planks will be coming to fill out the platform.

Tribune’s December 29th editorial on energy dependence was both factual and wrong. It left out critical information. Whoever wrote it should have consulted someone knowledgeable of the oil industry.

The first thing that caught my eye was the headline. We cannot be energy independent as long as we get oil from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. For some reason the people who know nothing seem to forget those countries sell us oil so we are far from being independent. The second is a picture of an oil well pumping unit and calling it oil rig. Rigs are towering structures that drill the hole. Units are put in place along with the piping, pump and rods after gas pressure reduces the free flow of oil.

The writer left out statistics of consumption, domestic production, and barrels we buy from different countries. Also the writer left out that oil shale fracking produces a spurt of oil which rapidly dies out. Often the well dries up before the financing is paid back. If the price of oil is high during the spurt, the well is profitable. If it is at today’s price it may not break even, drilling drops and therefore production when the price is low. We produce less and consume more.

I hope a more baked editorial will be forthcoming.