Quotations on Energy/Alternatives
Energy
is eternal delight.
-William Blake (1757-1827), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,
1790-93
We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of
oil. Embrace the future and recognize the growing demand for a wide range of fuels or
ignore reality and slowly—but surely—be left behind.
-Mike Bowlin, chairman and CEO of ARCO (now BP),
speech in Houston, 9 Feb 1999
Ours
is the most wasteful nation on Earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the
same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like
Germany, Japan, and Sweden.
-Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States,
Address to the Nation, 18 April 1977
We
can't conserve our way to energy independence, nor can we conserve our way to having
enough energy available. So we've got to do both.
-George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, quoted in
"Bush
Launches Effort to Sell Energy Policy Overhaul,"
The Washington Post, 4 May 2001
Total energy consumption in AEO2003 is projected to
increase from 97.3 to 130.1 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) between 2001
and 2020, an average annual increase of 1.5 percent. This projection is slightly
below the 2020 projection of 130.9 quadrillion Btu for total consumption in AEO2002.
By 2025, total energy consumption is projected to reach 139.1 quadrillion Btu in
AEO2003… Residential energy consumption is projected to grow at an
average rate of 1.0 percent per year between 2001 and 2025, with the most rapid
growth expected for computers, electronic equipment, and appliances.
-U.S. Department of Energy,
Annual Energy Outlook
2003 With
Projections to 2025,
Report#:DOE/EIA-0383(2003), 9 Jan 2003
And [energy] is superhuman in the sense that humans
cannot create it. They can
only refine or convert it. And
they are bound to it by one of the paradoxes of religion: they cannot
have it except by losing it; they cannot use it except by destroying it.
The lives that feed us have to be killed before they enter our mouths;
we can only use the fossil fuels by burning them up.
We speak of electrical energy as “current”: it exists only
while it runs away; we use it only by delaying its escape.
To receive energy is at once to live and to die.
Perhaps from an “objective” point of view it is incorrect to
say that we can destroy energy; we can only change it.
Or we can destroy it also by wasting it—that is, by changing it
into a form in which we cannot use it again.
-Wendell Berry, “The Use of Energy,” The
Unsettling of America 1977
People
use fossil fuels because the good Lord put them on earth for us to use.
-Fred Palmer, senior vice president of public relations
for coal
giant Peabody Energy
Cited in The Daily Grist 11 Oct 07
Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the crack
cocaine of the developing world.
–Alan Zarembo, L.A.
Times 18 Nov 07
You
oil field workers, come and listen to me
I'm goin' to tell you a story about old John D.
That company union made a fool out of me.
That company union don't charge no dues
It leaves you a-singing them Rockefeller blues.
That company union made a fool out of me.
Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys
To keep that oil a-rollin', rollin' over the sea.
Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys
To keep that oil a-rollin' over the sea.
-Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), "Keep That Oil a-Rollin'," 1942
You
can drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, on every continental
shelf and atop every hill in America
for that matter, and you still won't reverse the fact that our oil
production is in permanent decline. We're just sopping up what's left,
digging ourselves into a deeper hole.
- Rep. Roscoe
Bartlett (R-MD), quoted by Paul Salopek
in “A tank of gas, a world of
trouble,” Chicago Tribune,
29 Jul 06
…our
perception of the "energy crisis" is different from many. We feel that Americans
have had too much fuel available, that less will be better. I see it as the "effects
of too much energy" crisis. With our bigger-is-better, disposable, nonrenewable
energy past, I wonder if, in squandering fuel, we have not also subverted self-reliance,
neighborly concern, the active appreciation of balance and harmony. I think confronting
this legacy of too much, too soon would be the proper response to the energy crisis.
-Steven C. Wilson, Etheos Mountain Agriculture Institute,
quoted in National Geographic Report on Energy, Feb 1981
The advocates of an
energy crisis believe in and continue to propagate a peculiar vision of
man. According to this notion, man is born into perpetual dependence on
slaves which he must painfully learn to master. If he does not employ
prisoners, then he needs machines to do most of his work. According to
this doctrine, the well-being of a society can be measured by the number
of years its members have gone to school and by the number of energy
slaves they have thereby learned to command. This belief is common to
the conflicting economic ideologies now in vogue. It is threatened by
the obvious inequity, harriedness, and impotence that appear everywhere
once the voracious hordes of energy slaves outnumber people by a certain
proportion. The energy crisis focuses concern on the scarcity of fodder
for these slaves. I prefer to ask whether free men need them.
-Ivan Illich (1926-2002), “Energy
and Equity,” Le Monde,
1973
A low-energy policy
allows for a wide choice of life-styles and cultures. If, on the other
hand, a society opts for high energy consumption, its social relations
must be dictated by technocracy and will be equally degrading whether
labeled capitalist or socialist.
-Ivan Illich (1926-2002), “Energy
and Equity,” Le Monde,
1973
Even
if nonpolluting power were feasible and abundant, the use of energy on a
massive scale acts on society like a drug that is physically harmless
but psychically enslaving. A community can choose between Methadone and
"cold turkey" — between maintaining its addiction to alien energy
and kicking it in painful cramps — but no society can have a
population that is hooked on progressively larger numbers of energy
slaves and whose members are also autonomously active.
-Ivan Illich (1926-2002), “Energy
and Equity,” Le Monde,
1973
The so-called energy crisis is, then, a politically
ambiguous issue. Public interest in the quantity of power and in the
distribution of controls over the use of energy can lead in two opposite
directions. On the one hand, questions can be posed that would open the
way to political reconstruction by unblocking the search for a
postindustrial, labor-intensive, low-energy and high-equity economy. On
the other hand, hysterical concern with machine fodder can reinforce the
present escalation of capital-intensive institutional growth, and carry
us past the last turnoff from a hyperindustrial Armageddon.
-Ivan Illich (1926-2002), “Energy
and Equity,” Le Monde,
1973
Under
the rule of the "free market" ideology, we have gone through two decades of an
energy crisis without an effective energy policy. Because of an easy and thoughtless
reliance on imported oil, we have no adequate policy for the conservation of gasoline and
other petroleum products. We have no adequate policy for the development or use of other,
less harmful forms of energy. We have no adequate system of public transportation.
-Wendell Berry, "Peaceableness Toward Enemies,"
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, 1992
What
a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which
enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war.
Gasoline is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international
conflict.
-Simone Weil (1909-1943), The
Need for Roots, 1949
No
matter how advanced our economy might be, no matter how sophisticated our equipment
becomes, for the foreseeable future we will still depend on fossil fuels.
-Presidential candidate, George W. Bush,
Speech, Pontiac, Michigan, 13 October 2000
The
US government knows that conventional oil is running out fast. According
to a report on oil shales and unconventional oil supplies prepared by
the US office of petroleum reserves last year, "world oil reserves
are being depleted three times as fast as they are being discovered. Oil
is being produced from past discoveries, but the reserves are not
being fully replaced. Remaining oil reserves of individual oil companies
must continue to shrink. The disparity between increasing production and
declining discoveries can only have one outcome: a practical supply
limit will be reached and future supply to meet conventional oil demand
will not be available.
-John
Vidal, “The
End of Oil is Closer Than You Think,”
The Guardian, UK 21
Apr 05
A
quarter, perhaps a third, of the human race has moved toward a kind of world superculture
of skyscrapers, automobiles, airplanes, and intercontinential hotels. The rest of the
human race still remains close to subsistence. ... The development of the superculture is
the result of the knowledge explosion, which led not only to new theories and processes,
but to new discoveries, especially of fossil fuels and rich ores. In 1859 the human race
discovered a huge treasure chest in its basement. This was oil and gas, a fantastically
cheap and easily available source of energy. We did, or at least some of us did, what
anybody does who discovers a treasure in the basement -- live it up and we have been
spending this treasure with great enjoyment.
-Kenneth E. Boulding (1910-1993),
Ecodynamics: A New Theory of Societal Evolution, 1978
With its array of gadgets and machines, all powered by energies that are
destructive of land or air or water, and connected to work, market,
school, recreation, etc., by gasoline engines, the modern home is a
veritable factory of waste and destruction. It is the mainstay of the economy of money.
But within the economies of energy and nature, it is a
catastrophe. It takes in the world’s goods and converts them into
garbage, sewage, and noxious fumes—for none of which have we found a
use.
-Wendell Berry, “Living in the Future,” The Unsettling of America 1977
The
bottom of the oil barrel is now visible.
-Christopher Flavin, Worldwatch Paper 66, July 1985 *
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't like
TV news, is it? Here's what
I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of
denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders
are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what
we're hooked on.
-Kurt Vonnegut, In These Times, 10 May 04
I have no problem with a war for oil—if we accompany it with a real program for energy
conservation. But when we tell the world we couldn’t care less about climate
change, that we feel entitled to drive whatever big cars we feel like,
that we feel entitled to consume however much oil we like, the message
we send is that a war for oil in the gulf is not a war to protect the
world’s right to economic survival—but our right to indulge. Now that will be seen as
immoral.
-Thomas L. Friedman, “A War for Oil?”, New York Times,
4 Jan 03
Mixing
oil and testosterone can be dangerous.
-Myriam Miedzian, Boys Will Be Boys, 1991
War
and, apparently, hurricanes are very good for the oil business. But I've
got to believe at a certain point, as a nation, we're going to go in a
different direction toward an increased sense of personal
responsibility, a lowering of each individual's carbon footprint and a
real collaborative effort to help sustain our planet.
-Stephen Gaghan, writer and director of the film, Syriana
Breaking
America's oil addiction would not lead to a future of sackcloth and ashes.
-Colman McCarthy, Washington Post, 12 Oct 90 *
If
it's any consolation, I repeat what I have said … in previous rants:
that we are headed into a social and economic maelstrom so severe, as
the people on this earth contest over the remaining oil and gas
supplies, that everything about contemporary life in America will have
to be rearranged, reorganized, reformed, and re-scaled. The
infrastructure of suburbia just won't work without utterly dependable
supplies of reliably cheap oil and natural gas. No combination of
alternative fuels or energy systems will permit us to run what we are
currently running, or even close to it. The vaunted hydrogen economy is,
at this stage, a complete fantasy, and at the very least there is going
to be an interlude of severe disorder and economic discontinuity between
the unwinding of the cheap oil age and anything that might plausibly
follow it.
-James Howard
Kunstler, “Big and Blue in
America,” Orion, Sep 03
This
curious faith is predicated on the notion that we will soon develop
unlimited new sources of energy: domestic oil fields, shale oil,
gasified coal, nuclear power, solar energy, and so on. This is fantastical because the basic cause of the energy crisis
is not scarcity: it is moral ignorance and weakness of character. We don’t know how to use energy or what to use it for.
And we cannot restrain ourselves. Our time is characterized as much by the abuse and waste of human
energy as it is by the abuse and waste of fossil fuel energy.
-Wendell Berry, “The Unsettling of America,” The Unsettling of
America 1977
The
world still spins on the energy of fossil fuels—nonrecyclable and irreplaceable. The
United States represents an especially foreboding case study, for here is one of the
world's richest fossil fuel producers using up its own resources in an orgy of consumption
that is reflected neither in elevated living standards nor in a proportionately larger
GDP. Nor have we learned much from two major crisis in supply and our ever more
debilitating dependency on foreign oil: gas prices remain absurdly low, taxes (even after
the Clinton's budget initiative added 4.3 cents) are insignificant, and strategic
stockpiles unimpressive.
-Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld, 1995
Petroleum
demand is projected to grow from 19.5 million barrels per day in 1999 to 25.8 million in
2020—an average rate of 1.3 percent per year—led by growth in the transportation
sector, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. petroleum consumption. Projected
demand in 2020 is higher than in AEO2000 by 730 thousand barrels per day primarily due to
a higher projection for transportation fuel use.
-U.S. Department of Energy,
Annual Energy Outlook 2001 With
Projections to 2020,
Report#:DOE/EIA-0383(2001), 22 December 2000
Over
all, consumption of renewable energy fell 12 percent to what the
[Energy] department said was the lowest level in more than 12 years,
accounting for only 6 percent of the energy consumed in the country. Of the
renewables, biomass accounted for 50.4 percent of the
total and hydroelectric for 41.9 percent. The remainder was from the
sun, the wind and geothermal sources. Many environmentalists say solar and wind power have the greatest
potential for growth and for displacing fuels that cause pollution and
are suspected of causing changes in the world's climate. The solar total
is still very small; 36.3 megawatts of capacity were added in 2001. At
that rate it would take 30 years to add the capacity of one large
nuclear plant.Matthew L. Wald, “Use of Renewable Energy Took a Big
Fall in 2001,”
The New York Times, 6 Dec 02
Out of
sight and unnoticed, America's sprawling oil and natural gas pipelines are leaking on the
scale of a ruptured supertanker. They are fouling the environment and causing fires and
explosions that have killed more than 200 people and injured more than 1,000 in the past
decade. And the numbers are increasing steadily -- from 161 serious incidents in 1989 to
222 in 1999. Yet the federal government relies on a small, underfunded and understaffed
agency to police a powerful and wealthy industry. Together, the largest pipeline companies
in America each year earn more than enough to run the agency that regulates them for a
century. The Office of Pipeline Safety has 55 inspectors and is budgeted for 107 full-time
employees. But the agency has jurisdiction over more than 2 million miles of interstate,
intrastate and local pipelines -- enough to reach around the Earth 88 times. It rarely
imposes fines, even when a pipeline explosion leads to death.
-Jeff Nesmith & Ralph K.M. Haurwitz,
"Spills and
explosions reveal lax regulation of powerful industry"
Austin American-Statesman, 22 July 2001
Drilling
in the Refuge is completely unnecessary when we could improve the
average fuel economy of cars, minivans and SUV's by just 3 miles a
gallon and save more oil within 10 years than we could ever produce from
the Arctic Refuge… In
fact, yesterday, NASA announced that we are going to send a man to the
moon again by 2018, but President Bush won’t support a substantial
increase in the fuel economy of our nation's cars and SUVs by that same
year. What’s the problem? It's not rocket science – it is auto
mechanics!
Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey
on Arctic Refuge Action Day, Washington, D.C.
20 Sep 05
He
caused the east wind to blow in the heavens, and by his power he led out the south wind
-Psalm 78:26 NRSV Bible
Global
wind power capacity increased almost 26 percent in 2006, exceeding
74,200 megawatts by years end. Global investment in wind power was
roughly $22 billion in 2006, and in Europe and
North America, the power industry added more capacity in wind than it did in coal and
nuclear combined. The global market for wind equipment has risen 74
percent in the past two years, leading to long backorders for wind
turbine equipment in much of the world.
– “2006 Wind Installations Offset More Than 40 Million Tons
of CO2,”
Worldwatch Institute,
25 Jul 2007
Not
only will atomic power be released, but someday we will harness the rise and fall of the
tides and imprison the rays of the sun.
-Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931), 22 August 1921 *
The
natural world around us shows the way to relief. All of life is
maintained by the sun, by the air, by water, by the earth and its
resources. And to whom was the sun given? To everyone. If there is any
one thing that people do have in common, it is the gift of sunlight. But
as the early Christians said, “If the sun were not hung so high,
someone would have claimed it long ago.”
-Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935), Lecture, Vienna, Nov 1929
The
wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and
on its circuits the wind returns.
-Ecclesiastes 1:6 NRSV Bible
Power
capacity generated by the wind surged by more than a quarter last year,
mainly thanks to an expansion in Germany and other European countries,
according to industry figures released Wednesday.
Wind generators installed around the world by the end of 2003 had
the capacity to produce 39,294 megawatts, an increase of 8,133 MW, or 26
percent over 2002, they said. Germany installed 2,645 MW, bringing its
total to 14,609 MW, or 40 percent of the global total. Second was the
United States, which added 1,687 MW, for a total of 6,374 MW, followed
by Spain, up 1,377 MW to 6,202 MW, and Denmark, whose increase of 1,377
MW brought its wind-generated tally to 3,110 MW. …The EWEA said
windpower had notched up annual growth rates over more than 35 percent
in Europe over the past five years, and so it was time to ditch the
source's tag as "alternative" energy.
-Agence
France-Presse, “Wind
Power Leaps Forward,” 10 Mar 04
The
foundation is being laid for the emergence of both wind and solar cells as cornerstones of
the new energy economy. World wind generating capacity grew from 7,600 megawatts in 1997
to 9,600 in 1998, an expansion of 26 percent. At a national level, Germany led the way,
adding 790 megawatts of capacity, followed by Spain with 380 megawatts, and the United
States with 226 megawatts. In the past, U.S. wind generating capacity was concentrated in
California, but in 1998, wind farms began generating electricity in Minnesota, Oregon, and
Wyoming, broadening the new industry's geographical base.
-Lester A. Brown, Michael Renner, Brian Halweil, Vital Signs 1999, 1999
Why
wind energy?
Wind
is abundant. Scientists estimate that U.S. wind resources can supply more than
three times our total electricity needs.
Wind
is domestic. Unlike oil and, increasingly, natural gas, wind energy does not need
to be imported, and helps to reduce our dependence on foreign countries.
Wind
is inexhaustible. Unlike fossil fuels or uranium, wind energy is renewable and can
be used without reducing the birthright of future generations.
Wind
is clean. While displacing greenhouse gas emissions, using wind also avoids other
harmful fossil fuel pollutants such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides,
making our air and water cleaner and healthier.
–American Wind Energy Association, "Wind Energy and Climate Change"
Renewable
resources could produce 25 percent of the electricity and motor vehicle
fuels used in the
United States
by 2025 at little or no additional cost, finds a RAND Corporation study
issued today. Renewable sources currently provide about six percent of
all
U.S.
energy supplies. Using a computer model, RAND researchers assessed the
possible impact that a 25 percent renewable energy target for
electricity and motor vehicle ground transportation could have on total
national energy expenditures and on emissions of local air pollutants
and carbon dioxide by the year 2025. They found that if renewable energy
production costs decline by at least 20 percent between now and 2025,
which is consistent with recent experience, the 25 percent figure can be
reached unless long-term oil prices fall far below the range currently
projected by the federal Energy Information Administration, EIA.
-“25
Percent Renewable Energy,” Environment
News Service, 13 Nov 06
Help
us to harness
the wind,
the water,
the sun,
and all the ready
and renewable
sources of power.
Teach
us to conserve,
preserve,
use wisely
the blessed treasures
of our wealth-stored earth.
Help
us to share
your bounty,
not waste it,
or pervert it
into peril
four our children
or our neighbors
in other nations.
You,
who are life
and energy
and blessing,
teach us to revere
and respect
your tender world.
-prayer of Thomas John Carlisle
No
issue associated with the current energy debate is more in the center of
this conflict between demand and conservation than is the surface mining
of coal. Our most abundant
domestic fossil fuel is coal, and much of it occurs at depths where it
can be mined by surface methods. Surface
mining destroys the existing natural communities completely and
dramatically. Indeed,
restoration of a landscape disturbed by surface mining, in the sense of
recreating the former conditions, is not possible.
-National Academy of Sciences,
Report to the Energy Policy
Project of the Ford Foundation,
“Rehabilitation Potential of Western
Coal Lands,” 1973
The
use of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation is projected to grow
slowly because of the relatively low costs of fossil-fired generation and because
electricity restructuring favors less capital-intensive natural gas technologies over coal
and baseload renewables. Where enacted, State renewable portfolio standards, which specify
a minimum share of generation or sales from renewable sources, contribute to the expected
growth of renewables. Total renewable generation, including cogenerators, is projected to
increase by 0.7 percent per year.
-U.S. Department of Energy,
Annual Energy Outlook 2001 With
Projections to 2020,
Report#:DOE/EIA-0383(2001), 22 December 2000
He it
is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain and
brings out the wind from his storehouses.
-Psalm 135:7 NRSV Bible
It is
evident that the fortunes of the world's human population, for better or for worse, are
inextricably interrelated with the use that is made of energy resources.
-M. King Hubbert, Resources and Man, 1969 *
Imagine a world in which there is no disease … where hunger is
unknown … where food never rots and crops never spoil … Where
"dirt" is an old-fashioned word, and routine household tasks
are just a matter of pressing a few buttons … a world where no one
ever stokes a furnace or curses the smog, where the air everywhere is as
fresh as on a mountaintop and the breeze from a factory as sweet as from
a rose … Imagine the world of the future … the world that nuclear
energy can create for all of us.
—"Atoms
for Peace," Ladies Home Journal,
August, 1955
The
skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the
desert, and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and
admirable about them: the mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a
civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive
night.
-Jean Baudrillard, America 1989
The
energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It's a
problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it's likely to get
progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if
we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren. We simply must balance
our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control
our future instead of letting the future control us.
-Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States,
Address to the Nation, 18 April 1977
Right
now, other frightening imperatives have distracted us so far from the
program of benevolence toward our planet that it seems we might just try
to burn the whole world for fuel to keep ourselves guarded and cozy.
But that is not the expressed will of our people.
Most of us do understand, when we can calm down and think
clearly, that whether we are at peace or at war, the lives that hang in
the balance are not just ours but the millions more that create the
support system and biological context for humanity. More and more of us are listening for the silent alarm, stopping
in our tracks, wishing to salvage the parts of this earth we haven’t
yet wrecked.
-Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder, 2002
And we
must have more and more electricity because we are going to have more and more gadgets
that will make us more and more comfortable. This, of course, is the reasoning of a man
eating himself to death. We have to begin to distinguish between the uses that are
necessary and those that are frivolous. Though it is the last remedy that would occur to a
glutton or a coal company, we must cut down on our consumption—that is, our
destruction—of the essential energies of our planet. We must use these energies less
and less and with much greater care. We must see the difference between the necessity of
warmth in winter and the luxury of air conditioning in summer, between light to read or
work by and those "security lights" with which we are attempting to light the
whole outdoors, between and electric sewing machine and an electric toothbrush. Immediate
comfort, we must say to the glutton, is no guarantee of a long life; too much now is,
rather, a guarantee of too little later on. Our comfort will be paid by someone else's
distress.
-Wendell Berry, "Mayhem in the Industrial Paradise,"
A Continuous Harmony, 1970
We
want to see…the efficient production and use of energy, so that the products we
produce and the way we produce them pose no threat to the world's natural
environment…economic development…so that more and more of the world's population
can enjoy…the things which the energy industry supplies…(and) a society in which
ideas and knowledge move freely.
–John Browne, Group Chief Executive, British Petroleum Company,
from speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, New York, 13 Nov 1997
Indigenous
peoples have provided the lands and energy resources in this country since the first piece
of wood was burned by the non-Native immigrants who arrived in this hemisphere. Our people
have continued to contribute energy resources from lands that have been taken from Tribes
that contain coal, uranium, and the rivers that provide hydropower. It hasn't mattered if
the Tribal lands were removed from Tribal ownership, leases or the right of "eminent
domain". The resources are taken anyway, either by private industry or the
government.
-Patrick Spears, President of The Intertribal Council On Utility Policy from
speech
given to Environmental Justice and Energy Policy in the Upper Midwest
Conference at the University of St. Thomas, 15 Apr 00
Mega-hydroprojects
such as Manitoba Hydro's Lake Winnipeg Regulation and Churchill, Nelson Rivers Diversion
Project are not sustainable. The electricity Manitoba Hydro sells to you is not clean or
renewable, for you or for us. It is not cheap either. More destruction of the waters of
Nitaskinan and the boreal environment of which it is part should be unthinkable in today's
world. We should be planning for the decommissioning of these terrible undertakings, not
building more. There are alternatives to this kind of short-sighted destruction. Manitoba
itself does not need more power. And Minnesotans have the wind power, the conservation
potential, and the environmental and human rights conscience to reject harmful hydro from
Manitoba. In the end, only the beavers should build more dams in Manitoba.
-Chief John Miswagon, Pimicikamak Cree Nation from speech
given to Environmental Justice and Energy Policy in the Upper Midwest
Conference at the University of St. Thomas, 15 Apr 00
The
problems are our lives. In the "developed" countries, at least, the large
problems occur because all of us are living either partly wrong or almost entirely wrong.
It was not just the greed of corporate shareholders and the hubris of corporate executives
that put the fate of Prince William Sound into one ship; it was also our demand that
energy be cheap and plentiful.
-Wendell Berry, "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine"
What Are People For?, 1989
The
pattern of preferences for using energy efficiency to decrease demand and [renewable
energy sources] to supply energy has been consistent in the poll data for 18 years. This
is one of the strongest patterns identified in the entire data set on energy and the
environment.
-Dr. Barbara Farhar of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory,
quoted by Thomas O. Gray in "Views On The Environment: Clean And Green"
American Wind Energy Association
What
is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is
scattered upon the earth?
-Job in Job 38:24 NRSV Bible
In
many areas of the world, the main threat to the reliability of the electricity system is
the disruption of local power supplies caused by weather-related damage to distribution
lines or the overloading of lines due to excessive demand. Distribution system failures
cause 95 percent of the electricity outages in the United States. In the developing world,
these systems—if they exist at all—are even more brittle. While heat waves can
cause power demand from air conditioning to overwhelm electricity distribution systems,
weather related disasters—such as floods, ice storms, or hurricanes—can cause
widespread outages by knocking down lines. U.S. transmission and distribution expenditures
have exceeded those for generation since 1994.
-The Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2000,
project director Lester R. Brown
One
seldom thinks about the energy that is utilized in systems that supply energy – such
as oil-fired power plants. But energy is also utilized when exploring for fuel, building
the machinery to mine the fuel, mining the fuel, building and operating the power plants,
building power lines to transmit the energy, decommissioning the plants, and so on. The
difference between the total energy input (i.e., the energy value of the sought after
energy) minus all of the energy utilized to run an energy supply system equals the
"net energy" (in other words, the net amount of energy actually available to
society to do useful work). We mine our minerals and fossil fuels from the Earth's crust.
The deeper we dig, the greater the minimum energy requirements. Of course, the most
concentrated and most accessible fuels and minerals are mined first; thereafter, more and
more energy is required to mine and refine poorer and poorer quality resources. New
technologies can, on a short-term basis, decrease energy costs, but neither technology nor
"prices" can repeal the laws of thermodynamics
-Jay Hanson, "Energetic Limits
to Growth," Energy, Spring 99
We
believe that part of the answer lies in pricing energy on the basis of its full costs to
society. One reason we use energy so lavishly today is that the price of energy does not
include all of the social costs of producing it. The costs incurred in protecting the
environment and the health and safety of workers, for example, are part of the real costs
of producing energy—but they are not now all included in the price of the product.
-Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States,
Special Message to the Congress Proposing on Energy Resources, 4 Jun 71
Federal
policy over the past century has largely failed to promote an energy system based on safe,
secure, economically affordable, and environmentally benign energy sources. The tax code,
budget appropriations, and regulatory processes overwhelmingly have been used to subsidize
dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power. The result: increased sickness and premature
deaths, depleted family budgets, acid rain destruction of lakes, forests, and crops, oil
spill contamination, polluted rivers and loss of aquatic species and the long-term peril
of climate change and radioactive waste dumps–not to mention a dependency on external
energy supplies.
-Ralph Nadar, Statement
of Energy Policy, Nadar 2000 Presidential Campaign
I have
no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy…If sunbeams were
weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.
-Sir George Porter, quoted in The Observer, 26 Aug 73 *
The
use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.
-Ralph Nader, quoted in Loose Talk, 1980, Linda Botts, ed. *
Sunlight,
in its many guises, is the force that has shaped and driven the miraculous living fabric
of this planet for billions of years. It embodies the best engineering, the widest safety
margins, and the greatest design experience we know. It provides amply for our needs, yet
limits our greed…It is safe, eternal, universal, and free. It falls justly and
equitably on South and North, East and West. It increases autonomy, fosters diversity, and
does not hurt the balance of payments. Its quality is constant and high.
-Theodore B. Taylor, Skeptic, March-April 1977 *
The
sun, when it appears, proclaims as it rises what a marvelous instrument it is, the work of
the Most High. At noon it parches the land, and who can withstand its burning heat? A man
tending a furnace works in burning heat, but three times as hot is the sun scorching the
mountains; it breathes out fiery vapors, and its bright rays blind the eyes. Great is the
Lord who made it; at his orders it hurries on its course.
-Sirach 43:2-5 NRSV Bible
Alternative
energy is a future idea whose time is past. Renewable energy is a future idea whose time
has come.
-Bill Penden quoted in Atlas World Press Review, April 1977 *
Converting
biomass feedstocks to biofuels is an environmentally friendly process. So is using
bio-fuels for transportation. When we use bioethanol instead of gasoline, we help reduce
atmospheric CO2 in three ways: (1) we avoid the emissions associated with gasoline; (2) we
allow the CO2 content of the fossil fuels to remain in storage; and (3) we provide a
mechanism for CO2 absorption by growing new biomass for fuels. Because of their
compatibility with the natural carbon cycle, bio-fuels offer the most beneficial
alternative for reducing greenhouse gases from the transportation sector.
-U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory,
Biofuels: A Solution for Climate Change, November 1998
Under the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, all petrol and diesel
must contain 2.5% of biofuels from April 1. This is designed to ensure
that Britain complies with a 2003 EU directive that 5.75% of petrol and
diesel come from renewable sources by 2010. But scientists have
increasingly questioned the sustainability of biofuels, warning that by
increasing deforestation the energy source may be contributing to global
warming… John Beddington, [Britain’s] current chief scientific adviser,
has already expressed scepticism about biofuels. At a speech in
Westminster this month he said demand for biofuels from the US had
delivered a "major shock" to world agriculture, which was raising food
prices globally. "There are real problems with the unsustainability of
biofuels," he said, adding that cutting down rainforest to grow the
crops was "profoundly stupid".
-James
Randerson and Nicholas Watt,
“Top scientists warn against rush to biofuel”
The Guardian, 25 Mar 08
Since
I do not forsee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say
that for the present it is a menace. Perhaps it is well that it should be. It may
intimidate the human race into bringing order into its international affairs, which,
without the presence of fear, it would not do.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Atlantic Monthly, November 1945 *
The
word "energy" incidentally equates with the Greek word for
"challenge." I think there is much to learn in thinking of our federal energy
problem in that light. Further, it is important for us to think of energy in terms of a
gift of life.
-Thomas Carr, testimony to U.S. Senate Commerce Committee,
September 1974 *
Hydrogen
may be an ideal fuel when the supply of oil and natural gas runs out, but the problem has
been finding a way to produce it cheaply. Scientists now say the answer may be in ordinary
pond scum. Green algae, a simple plant that grows all over the world, has the unique
ability to convert water and sunlight into hydrogen gas, researchers said yesterday at the
national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Now
scientists have found a new way to force the algae to make hydrogen gas on demand, a
process that could lead to an almost limitless supply of fuel that burns without pollution
and produces only water as a waste product.
–Paul Recer, Associated Press,
"Pond
scum could provide fuel for the earth's future" 22 Feb 2000
The
day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall
harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history
of the world, we shall have discovered fire.
-Pierre Tielhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
For
lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals,
makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord, the God
of hosts, is his name!
-Amos 4:13 (ca. 760-750 BC) NRSV Bible
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