Doom! Doooooooom!!

Let me first say that I don't really like writing about political things. But, otoh, I tend to write about things that I have a strong opinion about, and I just happened to be sitting here when I suddenly had this strong opinion...

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I just read an article about problems with the alternative energy question. As is extremely common for me with issues like this, I'm for alternative energy, but against most of the other people who are also for alternative energy sources. The article was interesting, primarily because it didn't address the problem: merely discussed how the pro-alternative side was lying. I don't care if they're lying—I think they are probably all bastards anyway—but the article showed some of the complexity of the whole issue. Their primary point was that the pro-alternative lobbyists were oversimplifying, and glossing over the whole thing. To me, it was interesting to see the complexity of the problem as a function of interconnectedness. For example, if you had a fully electric car, as a matter of a national average—since i assume the figure varies from market to market—60% of the electricity you'd be pumping into that car would come from the burning of coal. Coal reportedly pollutes more than gasoline. Since I can't say how that particular factoid was derived, I can't say if that actually means that the amount of coal required to produce enough electricity to charge an electric car battery by 60% pollutes more than the amount of gasoline that would completely fill a gasoline-powered car of similar weight, range, etc. Nevertheless, the coal does pollute, and possibly more than the gasoline.

Alternative energy sources are problematic, too, though. For example, wind farms—in addition to killing birds—reportedly cause a significant change in the temperature of areas where they are located: they warm the area up. I have no idea if coal-burning power plants do this too. I wouldn't be surprised if they do. Nevertheless, wind farms are far from being a zero-impact source of energy.

Suppose, however, that we had a perfect alternative. There are, for example, prototype versions of hydrogen-based fuel cells that use one method or another of utilizing the heat to produce more electricity. These get a fuel/energy efficiency of 90%, compared with about 20% for a fully gasoline engine. (Note that a hybrid that was designed to recapture the heat and convert it to electricity would be significantly more than 20% efficient.) Further, suppose that the hydrogen fuel was readily available, cheap to produce, blah, blah, blah.

We could have fuel cells like that at home, in our cars, in our laptops, and just about everywhere. There'd be no need for power lines, except, perhaps, as a backup, and we could even theoretically transmit power out from our homes to help a friend out or sell back to the power company—as if they'd need it if we were all selling. So what would that be like? Well, for starters, if 60% percent of our current electricity, nationally, is produced from coal, that means there are tons of coal miners, people who work in coal-burning power plants, not to mention their bosses, and all the regular employees of the power companies. If we were all producing our own electricity, perhaps as many as 90% of them would have to find new jobs. Somehow, I don't see coal miners turning over a new leaf and becoming hydrogen miners. It would take more than simple job-training to turn all the coal miners into male-model/assassins.

This is the real problem, in the long run, and it applies to everything that needs to be changed in this country. If we had comprehensive, fast, and efficient public transportation that everyone used, where would the people who are now in the auto-industry work?

This is also why direct democracy is impossible and representative democracy is problematic. Here in Texas, a number of years ago there were perhaps as many as three separate referenda about putting a high-speed rail connection between Houston, Austin, and Dallas. Every time it came up, it was voted down. Considering that there are people in Japan who live on the west coast (of Japan) and work on the east coast—thanks to their high-speed rail system. I don't think it's unrealistic to imagine living in Austin and working in Dallas. However, what the majority wants, the majority ultimately gets—even if it's stupid to want that.

I don't know how to solve this. It's all very complex. The ultimate problem, of course, is the complexity. Any change we make to anything will likely hurt as many people as it will benefit.