One-Minute Writer: Energy

With fossil fuels dwindling, create a plan (realistic or fantasy) for ensuring there is enough energy for generations to come.

Pessimists and ordinary people alike claim that big oil is too big of a foe to combat. I think they're looking at this the wrong way. It is about innovation and determination and a willingness to change. We don't have to combat big oil -- we just have to make this about change we want versus a power struggle for energy. We should take all of the various ways that we have come up with to harness energy and use them. If the oil companies want to be included in this effort and continue to be profitable in the energy business, they are more than welcome at the table. But the change needs to happen now.

Look at Brazil: 30-year-old ethanol fuel program uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used to process heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance (output energy/input energy), which varies from 8.3 for average conditions to 10.2 for best practice production. Long story short? Sugar cane ethanol is available throughout the country. They've been working on this since the 70s and its paying off for them now, thanks to help from the government mandating increased ethanol percentage blends over the years.

Now, I'm not a big fan of corn ethanol but I'm a huge fan of sugar cane ethanol.

Let's harness the wind, water, sun, and other forms of energy we haven't even thought of yet. They're worth discovering and studying and making major impacts with. I don't have a concrete plan except that we should be open to this major sense of change. We have to be ready for it. We have to no longer be complacent with oil. It's not getting us anywhere. I was disturbed to find out that SUV sales have skyrocketed since the price of gasoline went back down. I wish I could find every one of those people and tell them that they're ultimately buying themselves an expensive problem. Gas prices will rise again, it's really only a matter of when. And without great initiatives, we will continue to be at the mercy of an unstable oil supply.

I'm ranting, I know, and I could certainly do my fair share of research and form a coherent plan for how to harness the world of energy (and perhaps I will).

The new question comes what can I do to further this?

Get involved with organizations working towards finding and implementing alternative forms of energy? Reduce my carbon footprint?

http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Organizations/index.html

Alternative Energy Resources Organization

Ok, I'm running away until I can form a coherent thought about this. More research and an actual plan to come later....