Should energy independence be a high priority in the US?

Yes

8 of 34

by Micah Myers

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

"The supply-demand fundamentals seem consistent with the view now taken by market participants that the days of persistently cheap oil and natural gas are likely behind us." Ben Bernake, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, 2006 http://www.energybul letin.net/17206.html

To paraphrase the Chairman, $4.24 a gallon for diesel fuel is going to become $5.24 and then $6.24. The trucker slow-downs of this month, and a planned convergence of semis on Washington D.C. on April 28, have been the expression of a profession going out of business. Independent contractors are going out of business left and right, while more and more freight is being hauled across the country by barge and rail. About two years ago business headlines told that Warren Buffet was investing $30 billion in railroads. A couple of books have come out since detailing ways to make money investing in an oil scarce economyy.

Natural gas and oil prices are expected to continue rising over the long-term due to continued growth in demand. There are other fuel sources we can afford to use in moving around and heating our homes, but they are not as plentiful and cheap as oil once was. Ethanol will get more expensive as the demand grows for corn to make it with. The tar sands in Alberta are not the massive oil find many irresponsible experts have made them out to be, because it actually takes a lot of energy and water to separate oil from sand.

Since our nation used the majority of its oil by the 1970s, a growing amount of the energy we use has been purchased from other countries. With the end of cheap oil, we are left with little option than to secure oil fields in foreign countries through war and economic coercion or develop our own energy resources based on the forces of nature. Obviously this second option is the last thing on the Bush Administration's mind, but the next President will have a hard time ignoring the American people's desire for energy independence which would mean affordable energy.

In the name of energy independence, the US is subsidizing energy corporations that are ruining the Appalachian mountains for the coal underneath, drilling oil over the mating routes of one of the few mammals adapted for the interior Alaskan environment, trying to figure out what to do with the growing tons of radioactive waste produced by nuclear generators, and subsidies for ethanol are going to corn farmers sucking the Ogallala aquifier (the source of groundwater from Texas to South Dakota) dry at a rate of 2-3,000 gallons a bushel.

While these ideas are said to fall under energy independence, I have to sharply disagree. These are all instances of cheap exploitation of a non-renewable resource that is bound to end badly. So, what does energy independence look like? I submit it looks like a circle. In the Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard (a great video easily find-able) we learn how our current system based off wasteful and damaging extraction is linear. That is energy and materials are extracted, used, and find their final resting place in an incinerator or landfill. Energy independence isn't really independent if you rely on corporations and government to dig stuff out of the ground that is in finite supply. That is called dependence, and we already have it.

Energy independence also looks like the Apollo Alliance proposal for a clean environment, full employment, and energy independence. "A crash program for sustainable energy independence would create three million good jobs, free the nation from imported oil, and promote a healthier environment. States and cities are leading the way toward a clean energy future. Now, the time has come for our nation to take up the challenge."

One way for our economy to gain energy independence is to close the loop. Anything that cannot be recycled needs to not be used. Any processes reliant on these toxic products needs to find suitable substitutes (not ethanol-based air travel obviously) or go out of business.Of course, we can't recycle enough to make a dent on our own, and the politicians in Washington know it.Since the politicians are beholden to corporate interests in the linear system, don't expect to see many recycling subsidies. This despite the fact that America's rate of consumption calls for recycling facilities in every city and town.

Another way to reach energy independence, and quite possibly the only way worth mentioning, is for every American household to start closing the loop now in ways widely available. Composting is closing the loop, and it saves a lot of energy. Gardening with that compost to grow some of your own food, or at least giving it to a neighbor who gardens, is a way to extend this. Besides this, use recycling programs that exist.

Solar and wind energy is too expensive on the mass scale for most Americans living paycheck to paycheck to invest in. The only investors with the capital to support so-called renewable energy are the city, state, and federal governments. You're more likely to personally engage a city government on these issues than the state governments. I cringe when I hear people refer to recent advances in photovoltaic technology as renewable. These solar cells use various types of rather uncommon materials, like iridium, which have to be extracted and have a shelf-life.

One major advance has been utilized in India, and we can expect more ingenious technologies along these lines to come from more impoverished and populated parts of the world. The personal biogas machine is produced by an Indian plastics company named Sintex.
http://www.ec ogeek.org/content/vi ew/1408/

It is capable of processing any organic material, including human dung, into usable methane (used just as natural gas or propane tanks are) and a safe compost (safe because the action of bacteria raise the temperature of the contents so high that no potential parasites can survive). The Indian government has subsidized the installation of some 3.9 million of these digesters (made large enough to serve an entire village) so far and plans on many millions more.

I think we can talk about a principle now, one that can help guide our actions towards achieving energy independence for Americans. Since the post-war boom of the 50's, corporations have tried their best to sell us all the things we used to do for ourselves. Dishwashers, disposals, trash compactors, vacuums, blenders, microwaves, and dryers now litter the countryside. This has been done in the name of giving us more free time to pursue more important things than the drudgery of housework.

Housework though, keeping a garden and canning okra or using a clothesline in the summer, is the essence of independence. We won't be independent until we take back the reigns by doing our chores. When corporations talk us into substituting machinery for the things we can do ourselves, then we forget how we did it ourselves to begin with.

Learn more about this author, Micah Myers.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.