Sustainable Energies

Since the roll-out of widely available electricity during the Industrial Revolution, most of the power used in the world has come from fossil fuels, predominantly coal and diesel. The vast majority of cars worldwide are powered by gasoline, and the rest, along with ships, trucks, and trains use gas's close cousin, diesel. Petroleum and coal are fundamental to our daily lives.

The problem, of course, is the damage to the environment. Carbon-based exhaust might be responsible for global warming; it is definitely responsible for blue clouds behind every car, smelly air, brown sunsets, shortness of breath... that impact can't be denied.

What we need instead are sources of energy that are renewable and clean. Fossil fuels are neither. But there are alternatives. What's out there now, and what's to come?

First let's look at the problems with the currently available fuel sources:

• Fossil fuels... 'nuff said. Hybrid cars are a step in the right direction, but not a big enough step to have significant overall impact.
• Hydrogen power, while totally clean when it's being used, is great. However, getting the hydrogen in the first place takes energy... a lot of energy. Right now that energy comes from the electric grid, which means we must burn even more coal to make it work. Not sustainable unless the grid itself is supplied by renewable sources.
• Electric cars have exactly the same problem, with the added disadvantage of having short range. As if that weren't enough, the batteries used in these vehicles are full of hazardous chemicals, and disposal of the huge quantities of batteries used in cars, computers, iPods, and all the other electric devices we use are going to be the next environmental crisis. But I digress...

So what options are out there? We need replacements for both automobile engines and for power production plants. Simply finding a clean way to power the electric grid solves both, as then hydrogen becomes a practical way to power cars.

There are scientists of many types worldwide working on ingenious solutions... here are a few of my personal favorites:

• Biodiesel works in any diesel engine (older engines need a few hoses replaced first). Exhaust from biodiesel is substantially lower (less than 25% of carbon dioxide and almost no sulfur emissions). While it is not totally clean, it's an enormous leap towards a solution. And it's completely renewable, as long as we grow corn and other vegetables that can be easily converted to natural oils.
• Wind energy is free and can be captured anywhere there is wind. The problem is how to handle days with no wind, and, well, that's the only reason we don't have wind farms everywhere already. Almost every sailboat on the open ocean uses wind to power the radios, navigation lights, and everything else, and it doesn't take much to power a single house. This is already practical for people and towns in many areas.
• Tidal power, while difficult to harness, holds great promise. If we can figure out how to partially dam the entrance to a large- or medium-sized harbor, we might be able to power the entire city on that harbor. There are engineering problems to solve, but I think this might be showing up in the next ten years or so in a few places.

The whole point is to move our power generation to sources that are natural, consistent, and abundant and that result in little or no emissions. This means it must be a resource that is "always on", such as the sun, rather than something such as oil that is in limited supply. The best solutions have a very short life cycle, measured in minutes, days, or weeks, rather than the millennia it takes for crude oil to form.

Biodiesel, for instance, comes from vegetable oil... anywhere we can grow vegetables in greater supply than is needed to feed people, we have a fuel source. Refining biodiesel can be performed safely by the average person from raw vegetable oil. Compare this to regular oil, which has to be drilled from wells which are formed naturally but at a slow rate... we are currently using crude faster than it is being formed, so it will eventually run out, and the refinement process itself is dangerous and polluting. Biodiesel is therefore sustainable, crude is not.

While wind power has historically not been very widely adopted, I still believe it holds great promise. The problems have to do with the efficiency with which the wind can be captured and converted to electricity... the power source itself is fantastic. Wind and tidal power are sources of enormous amounts of power, the problems are simply in the efficient conversion of this power. These are engineering problems that can be solved, and will be soon if we keep working on them. Raw solar power, too, is probably going to be a big part of the next century.

Since it can take decades from the day a new idea comes to mind until it's widely available, it's important that we push to get any new idea into the limelight right away and try it in small amounts to see what it can do for us. The solutions we see in our lifetime are already being experimented with, and we need to do whatever it takes to get these in common use around the world.

Resources:

• Renewable energy [en.wikipedia.org]
• Biodiesel FAQ [www.biodiesel.org]
• Biodiesel Emissions [www.biodiesel.org]
• Biodiesel [en.wikipedia.org]
• Wind power [en.wikipedia.org]
• Tidal power [en.wikipedia.org]

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• Fixes almost anything: Duct tape disappoints in wart-removal study [www.msnbc.msn.com]
• Who needs kidneys anyway? Lipitor Approved for Additional Uses [healthday.com]
• Does popcorn at the theater count? Americans Eating Fewer Vegetables [www.webmd.com]

From the editor

Wellness is about making change to both supplement your life by adding new positive behaviors and also eliminating negative behaviors from your life. While it may seem daunting to make live a completely healthful life, it doesn't take large changes to have an impact. Each small change is cumulative, adding to the changes that came before and the changes before that. One small change can have a very large impact over time.

With the global environment crisis, the answer is not to make sweeping changes immediately; that's not realistic or even possible. Instead, the answer is to make small changes everywhere, like choosing to recycle and walking instead of driving to go to the corner store. If one person does these things, the change is small, but if one billion people do these things then the impact can be beyond comprehension.

Every day make a change in your life that is a step in the right direction for you and for the world. At the end of a month, look back and see how much impact those changes is making for you. Then ask yourself, "What if everyone did this?"

Healthy thoughts,
Jeff