6. No Free Energy
Ever get the impression that everything is more complicated than it seems? It’s true! There seems to be some controversy these days about “green energy” sources such as wind, solar, and hydro, in terms of whether their net impact is in fact “green.” The thesis seems to be: “If you dig up the dirty laundry behind green renewables, you’ll see that they are just as bad for the environment as fossil fuels.” In fact, although it is true there is some dirty laundry with any approach to sustaining our modern energy demands, we don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and belief in a fossil fuel-free future is indeed justified. An apt analogy might be using rags instead of paper towels to clean things. True, re-using rags involves laundry detergent and running a washing machine, perhaps even a dryer; but you’ve avoided the tree harvesting, pulp processing, chemical treatments, resultant hazardous waste, packaging, shipping, disposal etc. involved in the...