Did You Think You Would Benefit From Lower Prices For Fossil Fuels? Think again. In the absence of an uproar from voters, pending legislation will raise the cost of everything from utility bills to driving your automobile. Congress and the President want you to limit your use of fossil fuels and they plan to force you to do it by a variety of ways. One of these is a new ruling recently passed by the EPA stating that emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels represents a hazard to our health. This opens the door for the government to impose restrictions on the burning of fossil fuels in order to protect your health. Pollution from burning fossil fuels can indeed be hazardous. The problem is that, even if these fuels are burned as cleanly as possible, they will still produce CO2, an odorless, colorless gas with out which life on earth would cease. CO2 is now considered to be a "greenhouse gas" and the major cause of global climate change. The only way to severely limit CO2 emissions is to drastically reduce the combustion of fossil fuels. Since every land dwelling animal that breathes produces CO2 with each exhale, it is obvious that life on earth will always produce CO2. When we discovered fire, we began to add CO2 to the atmosphere.
What About Plants? While I am no expert in this arena, I am aware that plants absorb CO2 and produce oxygen. Does this simplify everything? Could we just plant a lot of trees and other green stuff which would remove all the CO2 we produce? I have heard just that as a potential solution; however, this ignores one issue. When plants die, their decay absorbs oxygen and eliminates CO2. Even trees which live for hundreds of years, carry out this process through their leaves which means that every autumn, all those leaves that hit the ground become producers of greenhouse gasses. Granted, there are some trees that don't lose their leaves in the fall but you can tell by all those pine needles on the ground by your pine trees that the process of shedding old needles and growing new ones is continuous. I don't claim to know what the balance is but I do know that the whole process is beyond my comprehension. The bottom line is that I believe controlling global climate change is "above my pay grade" and I suspect it is beyond the pay grade of many of those who think they have the answers.
You Can't Ignore Economics. The old Lone Prairie song that says "the wind blows free" sounds right but it costs 9 cents a kilowatt hour to produce electricity from wind as opposed to 8 cents from coal. You also have to consider that, even in the most windy spot on earth the wind doesn't blow all the time which means that you have to use another form of energy to turn the turbines when the wind is insufficient. I won't say that wind energy will never replace fossil fuels but it appears to be premature to place too much emphasis on this while coal and petroleum are so plentiful.
Lets Just Grow Our Energy. We've demonstrated that you can't depend on growing corn for energy. Looking at recent trends in using vegetable oils as a diesel substitute, this doesn't look highly promising either. Since these oils now cost around $2.70 per gallon, as opposed to diesel at $1.50 wholesale, bio diesel doesn't appear at all competitive without government subsidies. If you don't believe this, look at the $88 million plant in Grays Harbor Washington, currently sitting idle. It's not just economics either. A recent study published in Science concludes that bio diesel is an environmental disaster if you include the effects of plowing under vast amounts of grasslands and forests to free up land for production of crops.
What's My Conclusion. I can't help but conclude that its a bit arrogant for us to hope to control the Earth's climate. While I would like to find renewable energy sources to replace fossil fuel and, although I think it will be possible some day, the technology isn't here yet. Let us not, try to legislate fossil fuels out of existance until we find economically viable substitutes.
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