Last week on NPR's Morning Edition, at the end of Renee Montagne’s interview with Bob Ferriter of the Colorado School of Mines, she asked him why, in 2010, we are still using people instead of machines to mine coal. I think the more appropriate question is why, in 2010, we are still mining and using coal at all. Mr. Ferriter defined the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) term “unwarrantable failure” as knowing the proper way to do something, and ignoring it. The coast-to-coast tragedies we have witnessed recently, from the oil refinery explosion in Anacortes, WA, to the Massey coal mine disaster in West Virginia, are the result of unwarrantable failure that extends far beyond industry management: We ignore the alternatives we have to fossil fuels.
And we do have alternatives. Wind farms dot the landscape from the wide-open prairies to the hills outside of San Francisco. Communities in Europe are able to generate enough electricity from roof-top solar panels that home owners sell power back to the grid. And we have barely touched the potential of biomass and geothermal. And conservation? Talk about Power to the People! That strategy is currently within the grasp of each and every one of us.
Of course, this "green" power is currently expensive. But what are the costs of the energy sources we doggedly, unquestioningly, continue to pursue: The price of gasoline has the power to send our economy into a tail spin. Soot from our tailpipes and factories so foul the air that the weather report warns “sensitive people” to stay indoors. Nuclear power plants are so risky that We The People have to subsidize their operation through government insurance -- never mind the 10,000 year half-life of their waste.
Oh, and now you can add 5 refinery workers and 25 coal miners to that price tag. How many solar panels would their families buy to have them back?
And we do have alternatives. Wind farms dot the landscape from the wide-open prairies to the hills outside of San Francisco. Communities in Europe are able to generate enough electricity from roof-top solar panels that home owners sell power back to the grid. And we have barely touched the potential of biomass and geothermal. And conservation? Talk about Power to the People! That strategy is currently within the grasp of each and every one of us.
Of course, this "green" power is currently expensive. But what are the costs of the energy sources we doggedly, unquestioningly, continue to pursue: The price of gasoline has the power to send our economy into a tail spin. Soot from our tailpipes and factories so foul the air that the weather report warns “sensitive people” to stay indoors. Nuclear power plants are so risky that We The People have to subsidize their operation through government insurance -- never mind the 10,000 year half-life of their waste.
Oh, and now you can add 5 refinery workers and 25 coal miners to that price tag. How many solar panels would their families buy to have them back?
RIP, Anacortes 7.
ReplyDeleteAdd to the tally: 11 oil rig workers, and at least two Kentucky coal miners. Is God trying to get our attention?
ReplyDelete