TBP Part 2: The Energy Industry

"To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything."
- Anatole France

All over the major news networks tonight are the reports of the mining tragedy in West Virginia. I mention it here because, as a parent, I feel so much more sensitive to harrowing human stories than I used to. Maybe I've become too sensitive, or perhaps now I've become "re-sensitized" to how precious life is after 30 years of media desensitization? Whatever the case maybe, the story behind the story of this current tragedy is the Coal Industry and ever-present and ever-growing energy problems.

There has never been a hurricane season like one we saw in 2005 since we started documenting weather statistics in the mid 19th century. The entire Gulf Coast region was hit and our energy production and import facilities were crippled. We all know the rest of the story: oil price spikes, $3 gas, home heating through the roof. One concern of mine is how fickle oil prices continue to be given our current geo-political environment and uncertain weather patterns. The United States is the world's largest consumer of oil, and with the explosion of economic growth in China and India increasing demand of oil our dependence on fossil fuels puts us in a precarious position. All this and there is little understanding among the general public just how uncertain some scientists are as to exactly how much oil is under Saudi Arabia and just how sensitive production wells can be. If you push production too far, you could actually trap the remaining oil that's underneath. The oil picture, however, is only one piece of our energy collage.

Looking at the bigger picture one can start to appreciate the place of coal in our society. You can truly appreciate the sacrifice of those West Virginian coal miners who lost their lives once you see that about 49% of our nation's electrical power came from coal in 2005!!! Mid-western and the southern states are some of the largest consumers of coal for electricity production (including Texas and other "red states"). Considering that the coal industry is practically the spine of our electricity infrastructure there is no excuse why safety standards in coal mines have become more lax. It's ironic (or suspicious) that US electricity production from oil increased 49% in 2005 when compared to 2004 when we have the largest known reserves of coal on the planet that are the equivalent of four times the oil reserves under Saudi Arabia!!! Coal is incredibly cheap when compared to oil, but the production and utilization of it remains dangerous and dirty. The US has to make the industry safer and cleaner to the point where we can truly become the "Saudi Arabia of Oil" and begin to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy. These energy facts are still only part of the bigger picture.

In case people haven't been keeping track of the "buried" news out of Iraq or how our involvement there relates to our need to be close to oil resources, do people realize that our "good friend" who sold us the war, Ahmed Chalabi, is now the Iraq Oil Minister? What about our electrical infrastructure? Has everyone forgotten how vulnerable and antiquated our electrical grid is? Have we forgotten about the 2003 Black Out? What about the Auto Industry? Do people realize how slow US car makers are to capitalize on the popularity of Hybrid models and how their dependence on SUV sales is one reason why Toyota may outpace US auto makers like Ford and GM?

The competition between the US and Russia to gain a strategic advantage gave birth to the "Mercury", "Gemini", and "Apollo" programs and a wave in technological innovation. What we need today is a new space race, or a new "Apollo Program", or you could even call it a new "Independence" movement that will create huge Federal and private investments in education, innovation, science, and technology that increases our independence from foreign energy sources. We can copyright our new technology and infrastructure and sell/export our new energy expertise globally. We can revitalize "American Pride" as we did in 1969 when we landed on the moon, and we can outpace Asia and the European Union as our economy is invigorated by a new booming Energy Industry all the while reducing our colonial ties to the middle east that have given so much impetus to the fundamentalist Muslims that seek to destroy us.

In the meantime we will all be wise to watch the Energy Industry in the near future, maybe even invest a little on wall street as energy company stocks rise. I'll be keeping track of how alternative energy companies are doing despite how slow they've been able to progress due to limited Federal and private investment. Heck, I might even guide Noella to pursue a science, engineering, and/or technology track to fight those "bad guys"as those skills may come in handy if I'm right about renewable sources of energy?....