Obama or Romney? Nah, electricity

By John McGory

This year’s presidential election will determine who our country’s leader will be.  Regardless of who wins, the real power in our world is electricity.

Electricity is the one leader we cannot do without.  We can change presidents and prime ministers but could you imagine the state of world affairs if we lost power for a substantial period of time? It would be very ugly.

The recent storms that ripped through the Midwest and Middle Atlantic states left millions without electricity for up to a week.  Ask any business or individual who didn’t have power for a week how important electricity is to them today.  They would kneel to the all powerful king.

The world’s economic and environmental future hinges on how we continue to provide a steady, reliable stream of electricity for a growing world.  The world-wide consumption of electricity doubled since 1980 and is expected to double again by 2030. 

China doubled its electric power system between 2006 and 2010.  India electric consumption will increase fivefold from 2010 to 2030. 

The United States electric needs sound modest in comparison to developing countries.  The U.S. electricity consumption will increase by 1.4 percent a year for the next two decades, according to Daniel Yergin in his book, “The Quest.”  But don’t be fooled, it will not be easy to produce.   Yergin says the U.S. will need to build about 300 new standard-sized coal-fired plants or 150 nuclear reactors to meet that increased consumption.

So how does the world get from here to there to meet it insatiable hunger for electricity?  Here are two questions that need to be answered:

1.   What types of fuel will countries use to produce their electricity needs? 
2.    How will the world pay for the estimated $14 trillion it will cost to accommodate this growth?        

Electricity’s great strength is its flexibility.  It is not a primary energy resource but one that is made from other resources.    Coal, natural gas and uranium are today’s big three with coal supplying 45 percent of the power for electricity, followed by natural gas at 23 percent and rising, and nuclear at 20 percent.  Hydropower supplies seven percent, wind approximately two percent and oil one percent. 

These primary resources are competing for a piece of the worldwide $14 trillion electric pie.  They all have their pluses and minuses.  Coal, natural gas and nuclear are the big boys who are elbowing their way into position.

They are trying to elbow out renewable energies.  The big three continue to say that renewable energies are decades away from having a significant impact on the world’s electricity needs.

This year’s presidential election will put Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in a tight spot.  Huge contributions are coming in from the big energy producers.  But 85 percent of the public wants renewable energies to play a bigger role in meeting our energy needs. 

The candidates are going to walk a tightrope in appeasing big energy contributors while assuring the public that renewables will play a part in our energy future.  Listen closely to the candidates and you should be able to tell who is paying for the words that are coming out of their mouths. 

Electricity is our sovereign ruler.  We need it to live in our modern world.  The need for more power is great so the stakes are high.  Our economic and environmental future hinges on how we produce and pay for electricity.  The king must be served.

John McGory is an Ohio Energy Soldier and a partner in Webface, an original content marketing company.              

Renewable energy needs to find more ways that won't work

By John McGory

Support for renewable energy is nonpartisan.  Polls show Republicans and Democrats equally support the development of new sustainable sources of energy for our country.  This hasn’t prevented the presidential candidates from sparring over the bumpy road to renewable energy. 

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney continues to slam the Obama Administration over the $528 million in loans the administration gave to the now-bankrupt Solyndra, a solar-panel manufacturer located in California.

The Obama camp has fired back about Massachusetts’ Green Energy Fund which was supported by then-Governor Romney.  Three of the 12 companies funded by the state have gone bankrupt or were sold for a loss.

If support for renewable energy is strong and nonpartisan, then the U.S. must not only accept failure, but embrace it.

One of America’s great inventors, Ohio’s own Thomas Edison, realized the importance of failure in innovation.  Edison said this about his many attempts at creating the light bulb, “I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Edison and his team worked around the clock for a decade to create the first central electric generating plant in the United States.  The Pearl Street Station in lower Manhattan lit J.P. Morgan’s house.  He was one of Edison’s major investors. 

Morgan’s house had 385 light bulbs that were powered by a specially built steam engine and electric generator in the basement.  The wiring set Morgan’s library on fire and the equipment had an irritating clanging noise.  Morgan commented that “I hope the Edison Company appreciates the value of my house as an experimental station.” 

Edison’s biggest complaint was financing the expensive project.  Costs were a serious problem as the price for copper, needed for the wires, kept going up.  His comment regarding his investors sums up today’s struggles with renewable energy development.  “Capital is timid,” said Edison.

His plan to bring electricity into private homes was ridiculed by many.  Experts appointed by the English Parliament disregarded Edison’s innovations as “good enough for our transatlantic friends” but “unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.”

Today our country has an integrated electric grid system second to none.  The genius and persistence of Thomas Edison is one of the main reasons for its success.  If our goal is to power our cities through renewable energies 100 years from today, then that same zest for finding ways that won’t work is needed.  Complaints about perceived failures in achieving this goal are unworthy of practical or scientific men.

John McGory is an Ohio Energy Soldier.  OES supports the research and funding of renewable energies and every Ohioans responsibilty to reduce their personal carbon footprint.  Go our Facebook fan page for more information.

Oil's Red Herring: World Hunger

 By John McGory

Conspiracy theories are based on the notion that complex plots are put into motion by powerful forces.  The plots’ goals are often to dupe the public and steal their money or power.   The plotters’ tools include switching the argument or blaming other people or ideas for the “real” problem.

Recent comments by two pro-oil powerhouses may point to a new strategy by fossil fuel supporters that may be worth keeping an eye on by the conspiracy theorists.

Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil’s chief executive, recently used the “switching the argument” tactic.  He said in New York City that tackling global poverty should have a higher international priority than reducing carbon emissions, because it would give billions of the world’s energy poor access to oil and gas supplies.

“They’d love to burn fossil fuels because their quality of life would rise immeasurably,” said Tillerson.  “You’d save millions upon millions of lives making fossil fuels available to parts of the world that don’t have it.”

Tillerson believes world hunger is the “real” problem and oil can solve it.

Now go across the pond to Norway and hear how Ivar Giaever, Norwegian physicist and 1973 Nobel Prize winner, blames alternative energies for preventing hungry children from being fed. 

"In particular, I am worried about all the money wasted on alternative energies, when so many children in the world go hungry to bed," said the physicist.

Giaever clearly blames alternative energy development as the reason why the world has hungry children.

Hmmm.  It appears from these comments from two esteemed energy experts that the "real" world problem is world hunger, oil can solve it and alternative energy is preventing its solution.

World hunger is a serious problem that needs to be tackled but it is being used as a red herring in Tillerson and Giaever's arguments.

A "red herring" is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue.  These energy experts are discussing oil and alternative energy issues so they introduce world hunger under the guise of being relevant to energy issues.  The world hunger issue becomes the focal point and energy issues are dismissed.

Is world hunger going to be the next political football used to take people’s attention away from the economic and environmental problems associated with an oil-dominated world? An argument could easily be made that increased production of lower cost renewable fuels could be the true answer to solving world hunger.

Switching the argument or blaming others for our “real”problems are two age-old political strategies to draw attention away from an issue. The conspiracy theory crowd may want to keep their eye on how this developing oil/alternative energy/world hunger argument plays out. 

John McGory is an Ohio Energy Soldier.  Go to our fan page on Facebook to like Ohio Energy Soldiers.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ohio-Energy-Soldiers/398221510229537

.