Energy independence?
We only have to decide to go for it
“From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It’s not a miracle. We just decided to go.”
— Tom Hanks, as Astronaut
Jim Lovell in “Apollo 13”
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
I REMEMBER when this country would “just decide to go” and do something that had never been done — something so hard that it seemed impossible — and then just go.
I was not yet 16 when men first stepped into the gray talcum of Tranquillity Base, and I didn’t know that I was living through the last days of the age of heroic national effort. I thought the muscular, confident idealism of World War II veterans such as John Kennedy was the norm. JFK said let’s go to the moon. It didn’t matter that nothing like it had ever been done, or that the technologies had not yet been invented. We just said OK, let’s do it.
We built rockets. Brave men stepped forward to sit atop them in hissing, flashing, buzzing, wired-up sardine cans. Slide-ruler nerds who feared no challenge designed all the gadgets that went into the rockets and made them fly true. The rest of us paid the astronomical bills, and suspended our lives to watch each launch, in fuzzy black-and-white. We held our breaths together as though we were the ones waiting to be blasted to glory, live or die.
And in a sense, we were. That was us. We were there.
Why did we stop doing things like that? Where did we lose the confidence? When did we lose interest in working together? How did we lose the will?
Was it the bitter end of Vietnam, which caused us to swear off fighting for justice beyond our borders for a generation? Was it Watergate, which ended common trust in leadership? (I watched “All the President’s Men” with my children recently, and to help them fully appreciate the suspense, I had to stop the disc and try to explain a time in which most people could not imagine the president of the United States would really do such a thing.)
Was it the end of National Service, which gave rise to a generation that had never pulled together in common cause, and couldn’t even imagine doing so? Was it the “I got mine” hypergreed of the ’80s and ’90s, which made shared sacrifice passe?
I don’t know. Maybe all of the above. I do know I’m tired of it. I miss the country I used to live in.
That country would have stayed united for more than a few weeks after 9/11. It would have rolled up its sleeves and sacrificed to make itself economically independent of Mideast regimes that currently have no motivation to change the conditions that produce suicide bombers.
But we don’t volunteer for that today, and “leaders” don’t dare suggest it.
What got me started on all this? Lonnie Carter, president of Santee Cooper, said several things last week that sent my thoughts down these paths. He got me thinking how easy it would be for this nation to move toward energy independence, reduce greenhouse gases and even save money. It wouldn’t even be hard, or require sacrifice or inventiveness. We have the tools. It’s a matter of attitude.
Mr. Carter showed us one of those curlicue fluorescent light bulbs. Big deal, I thought. I’ve got a few of those at home; my wife bought them. They look goofy, and don’t fit into some of our smaller fixtures.
But Mr. Carter said that while such a bulb costs a couple of bucks more, it uses only 30 percent of the energy to produce the same light, and lasts 10 times as long. That one “60-watt” bulb (really only 15) would save you $53 before it gave out.
Think how much energy we could save if all of us bought them. The things are already on the store shelves, but most of us bypass them for the old unreliables. It’s a “matter of changing our habits,” Mr. Carter said.
How about renewable energy? Mr. Carter said utilities already offer that option to customers. But while 40 percent say they would pay a little more for such greener, smarter energy, only 1 percent actually do when it comes time to check that box on the bill.
Attitude again.
Then there’s nuclear power. “If our country is interested in energy independence and affecting climate change,” said Mr. Carter, “nuclear is the best option.” It’s clean, it’s efficient, and we don’t have to buy the fuel from lunatics.
The government is even offering incentives to build the new generation of super-safe plants. But there’s still an attitude problem, as evidenced in the approval process. Santee Cooper plans to build two such plants. Just getting approval will take until 2010, so the plants can’t produce power before 2015. We managed to go from rockets that always blew up to “The Eagle has landed” in less time than that. And this time, we already have the technology.
“We need all due diligence,” said Mr. Carter. “But we don’t need to drag our feet.”
Still worried about spent fuel? “We know how to handle it safely,” he said. We’ve been doing so for 50 years. We also know how to put it away permanently; it’s “just a policy issue.”
If we could take such obvious steps, maybe we could then start taking the “tough” ones.
Maybe we could even put the SUVs up on blocks and reduce our gasoline consumption to the point that Big Oil — and maybe even Washington — would see that they ought to invest some real effort in developing hydrogen, or biofuels, or whatever it takes.
Did you know that Brazil expects to achieve energy independence this year? Maybe it has become the kind of country we used to be — the kind of country we could be again.
It just takes the right attitude.
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Snarling, bloody Brad. Nice! Love the new pic!
Let me see if this (cut/paste) will work.
This country will never achieve energy independence so long as the PRCs remain in power. And that doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon. Replacing DEMS and REPUBS with more DEMS and REPUBS gives us the same “sloppy stew” of a ruling class that could care less about the ordinary citizen. They need our votes every two or four years and then we are crap beneath their feet until the next election. And
when that election comes, we’ll all be crawling back to the ballot boxes to elect the next generation of PRCs who will take us to the cleaners for another political cycle.
What got this country and state away from the “decide to go for it” society we once were? Not necessarily, not totally, for the reasons noted in your column such as the “bitter end of Vietnam” (another politician’s war); or, the President breaking into Democrat headquarters (he didn’t, he tried to cover it up); the end of National Service; or, the hypergreed of the 80’s/90’s (which is still with us only worse). It was all of that plus multiculturalism, diversity and the
hyphenated-American. All of these cultural movements stress the individual, the great “ME”, not the collective good for the entire group. Heck, even our military today has the slogan “An Army of ONE”. You can bet the Marines will never adopt that philosphy.
Brazil will acheive energy independence this year because they, as a country, began working on it after the great oil crisis of the 70’s. Their government and people were dedicated to it. We never were because the PRCs didn’t want change. The “oil men” and “car makers” saw to it that the only
changes made were to line their pockets. Bigger, more expensive autos, gas guzzlers. MORE! BIGGER!
THEIR attitude is the one that counts. Not yours, not mine, not anyone who is not of the PRC class. And “that ain’t gonna change” until we “vote the bastards out”. Tell me how we’re going to do that with the current system.
Well, it didn’t, but I tried.
Brad, Krauthammer wrote a viewpoint in Time Mag. Feb 13 issue. The title, Don’t Believe the Hype. We’re Still No. 1.
Engineers and inventors aren’t leaving the US to go to Brazil or elsewhere, instead they are coming here to be productive. The US ranks number 1 among the world’s nations of any size in productivity. China and India are 49 and 50 ranking. Interesting that Intel was founded by a Hungarian, Google by a Russian, and Yahoo by a Taiwanese. As imperfect as we are in regard to business regulation and taxes, this is still THE place to make it in the world. In regard to energy, I looked all over and cannot find the article, but the Brazilian government is giving generous tax and business incentives to grow sugar cane. They obviously need huge quantities of it to make the ethanol. Guess what, in a country where environmentalism is a non existent concept, the Brazilians are bulldozing forests to make room for sugar cane. That would go over big here. The US (and the world) already has the energy answer, nuclear (or nookler if you are from Texas). Nuclear is clean, renewable, safe, controllable and needs to be expanded in use now. Mr. Carter is right on about nuclear. Maybe Graham and DeMint need to sponsor legislation to cut the 10 year Santee nuclear cycle down to 2 years.
As for the cultural atmosphere in the US now versus the 50’s and 60’s, then the 70’s thru 90’s, I think a lot of the problem goes to the populace taking many things for granted and actually demanding peace and prosperity in the face of worldwide conflicts that stand in the way of peace and prosperity. The entitlement mentality is one way to describe it.
In his first year as President, GW Bush increased research funding for alternative energy sources by 1000% over the Clinton administration.
What did that produce, besides some nice jobs for academics and government contractors?
It requires two gallons of petroleum fuel to produce one gallon of ethanol, so there is no cost savings there, at $5.00 a gallon.
Brad, Don’t forget that hydrogen energy and hydrogen fuel cells will/could lead to energy independence and the breakthroughs could be made here in Columbia, Aiken, and Clemson.
I’d like everybody to stop and remember where they were on July 15, 1979. Think about how long ago that was. A long, long, time ago, right? Now read the following words that were spoken on that very day, nearly twenty-seven years ago:
“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose….
What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends…
This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation…It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them….
To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun….
I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation’s problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort….there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice….”
Incredible to read these words now. As the years pass they may come to loom even larger as some kind of prophetic warning to our nation.
Brad, the answer to your question “why did we stop doing things like that” is easy. Politicians learned that speaking the blunt truth like Jimmy Carter did, treating the American people like adults, instead of children, is a recipe for political disaster. From that point forward we have gotten nothing but cheap propagandistic slogans like “Morning in America,” “1000 Points of Light,” “Compassionate Conservative,” “Centrist Democrat,” “I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman,” “Clear Skies,” “Healthy Forests,” “Patriot Act,” and the Grand Finale, “War on Terror.”
The generation that went to the moon was also busy sowing the seeds that would produce the “me-first” generation. I, sir, am also ashamed of another US President, John F. Kennedy, whose personal moral behavior exemplified the me-first attitude. No one would have thought back then (thought there were plenty of rumors about a “woman in every port” – but most of us thought, a president would never do that!) that a man would behave like he did in the White House. But as the leader leads, so goes the nation. As is so often the case, affluence tends to lead to a lack of moral focus.
A further example: the booster generation had 80 million babies. The boomer generation, my generation that followed, also had 80 million babies, but killed 30 million of them.
Not that I don’t applaud your goal of energy independence. But, when the foundations of a society are being destroyed, it is hard to imagine that much can be built on them. Without the self-discipline that comes from being morally focused, I doubt we can achieve the common good.
Previous leaders had, for the most part, given us a better foundation. One example can be found in David McCullough’s volume, Harry S. Truman in reference to the Potsdam conference:
Excellent quote from Jimmy Carter, Phillip. Thanks.
The change that seems significant to me, in terms of changing America’s way of thinking after the Moon landings, was the onset of high fossil fuel taxation.
Without that payoff to everyone in government, the antinuclear movement would have had no more clout than the antifluoridation one. Similarly, Glaser’s 1968 idea for solar power satellites would have caused a non-petrolist government to accelerate the space program rather than deciding that the public had lost interest.
It wasn’t the public.
This may appear to be way off topic, but to Herb’s point about how the foundations of our society are being ruined, see this snippet from Pat Boone recently written. I also believe that the day in and day out filth and nonsense served up to the youth of this country ends up taking a toll on the spirit and motivational drive of the entire nation. From Pat:
Well, it’s 2006, and today’s Academy has handed out its golden Oscar to a song it declared the best our movie composers could come up with, this year’s statement to the rest of the world about who and what we are. I saw some of it performed on the Awards show, and I turned it off, aghast that it was even nominated and considered – and appalled when it was declared the winner.
My friend Nelson Sardelli, a singer himself, one of Las Vegas’ best entertainers, sent me two lyrics samples to compare: one, the kind of enduring standard that reflected the best of our society, and the other, a portion of this year’s acclaimed winner. You tell me what this says about our culture, and what the rest of the world should think about us.
From the Oscar winning song from 1936
“The Way You Look Tonight”
from “Swing Time” (1936)
Someday when I’m awfully low
When the world is cold
I will feel a glow
Just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight
Oh, but you’re lovely
With your smile so warm
And your cheek so soft
There is nothing for me
But to love you
Just the way you look tonight
——————————————————————————–
From the Oscar winning song of 2006
“It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”
from “Hustle and Flow” (2006)
You know it’s hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin’ to get this money for the rent
For the Cadillacs and gas money spent
Will have a whole lot of *itches talkin *hit
Will have a whole lot of *itches talkin *hit
Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too
You pay the right price and they’ll both do you
That’s the way the game goes, gotta keep it strictly pimpin’
Gotta have my hustle tight, makin’ change off these women, yeah
You know it’s hard out here for a pimp
I’ll spare you the rest – there’s way too much more, and it doesn’t get any better. “Hard Out Here For a Pimp” now takes its place beside “Moon River,” “Over the Rainbow,” and “White Christmas.”
When the self-anointed of Hollywood decree that something of our all time worst is our forever-enshrined “best,” should it not make us sad?
Sad and repulsed.
Once again, Warthen demonstrates the laziness that has rendered him a failure as a journalist. He relates the various observations and claims of Lonnie Carter without ever once raising what would seem to be an obvious question:
What percentage of electricity generation uses foreign fuel sources?
In addition, Warthen fails to recognize other problems with Mr. Carter’s analysis.
In evaluating Mr. Carter’s advocacy of nuclear power, we need to remember that the public’s disenchantment with nuclear power arose, in large part, because the estimates of the costs of nuclear power generation were false. The costs of nuclear power don’t merely include the costs of building and fueling the plants; they also include the costs of repairing damage caused by, and cleaning up after, accidents, as well as the costs of storing waste. These costs turned out to be incalculably higher than represented.
Mr. Carter’s view that the new generation of nuclear plants will be “super-safe” may be correct, but we will need information from someone with more integrity than electric company executives have shown in the past.
As for the problem of storing the waste, this is a problem that is “solved” by having the costs shouldered by persons other than those who use the electricity whose generation produces the waste. Is Mr. Carter proposing to negotiate with persons affected by the storage of waste, and bargain in a free market for the right to store waste? Or is the problem “solved” by the use of land owned by the population as a whole to subsidize the cost of electricity generation for a small portion of the population – to allow consumers of nuclear power to accept handouts, as it were, from the federal government?
The use of nuclear power plants may allow Mr. Carter to provide below-cost electricity to his customers by imposing those costs on the citizens of the United States as a whole, and by using the power of the federal government to impose a nuisance on the citizens of Nevada. However, an accurate analysis of the desirability of nuclear power would involve an analysis of the true costs of the electricity, with the costs being paid for by his customers rather than being imposed on persons who do not use or benefit from the electricity.
I was surprised but happy to see the Shell station off Shop Road had an ethanol hook up. I think you’re right Brad; it’s about getting people to change their habits for the good of the country and the environment.
The current President should do the JFK thing (i.e., setting a national goal for putting a man on the moon) and set a national goal, complete with timeline, for withdrawing from imported foreign oil and gas and achieving true energy independence.
The energy potential for methane hydrates [SEARCH KEWORDS: METHANE HYDRATES]should be explored, particularly the vast deposits that lie off the South Carolina coast. To quote a published government fact sheet:
“The worldwide amounts of carbon bound in gas hydrates is conservatively estimated to total twice the amount of carbon to be found in all known fossil fuels on Earth.”
http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html
Basically, Methane Hydrate is methane gas bound up in ice. There are enormous, untapped deposits laying at the bottoms of ocean all over the world. Since natural gas is mostly methane, it is conceivable that you could extract the methane and inject it into the existing natural gas pipeline distribution system running across the state. This could make the Great State of South Carolina an energy exporter and provide enough revenues to reduce or eliminate property taxes and state income taxes.
(Perhaps Brad Warthen and his ilk might start researching and reporting on this abundant potential energy source.)
With all touting about the hydrogen economy, why the heck aren’t we taking a harder look a WATER for an energy source. It’s like when my kids are thirsty. I tell them to get a drink of water from the kitchen sink. There is a whole faucet full of the stuff, it is the cheapest stuff on earth, and it is reasonably pure.
Just something to think about as gasoline climbs back up to $3.00 a gallon (and beyond.)
Ethanol use increases our dependency on fossil fuels, because it requires 2 gallons of gasoline or diesel fuel to produce one gallon of ethanol.
Mayor Coble supports the few temporary jobs that hydrogen fuel cell research might bring to Columbia, regardless of its chance for success, or benefits and costs to the rest of America who is paying the bill.
Fuel cells and electric power will require huge amounts of new electric power, and that means nuclear. There is nothing wrong with that per se, just be aware that what the naive consumer believes to be a small-scale, “green” solution may actually be a large-scale project involving lots of new poisonous chemicals in every vehicle as the storage media.
Brad,
I enjoyed reading your “Go for it” article, but I have to admit I enjoyed reading your blog responses even more. Neither your piece nor your bloggers convinced me that there is a simple solution and I certainly don’t have one, however the bloggers and some parts of your article remind me of a story I heard many years ago that went something like this:
An elderly gentleman spent his days hanging around the local train station greeting the passenngers as they left the train. One day he met a new family moving to his town and was asked by the father “What kind of town is this?” and he replied ” What kind of town did you come from?” The entire family chimed in telling him about how bad the town was; “It was an awful town and we were glad to leave; terrible neighbors, too many juvenile delinquints, terrible schools, to many crooked politicians, too many uppity church folks, and on and on. He responded ” You’ll find this the SAME kind of town”
The next day another new family came in and he was asked the same question and he asked them “What kind of town did you come from?” and they answered “It was a wonderful town and we hated to leave. We had wonderful neighbors, schools, churches, etc.” He told them “You’ll find this the SAME kind of town.”
As for me, I think I live in the same kind of community as Dave and Mayor Coble.
In his latest book,Jimmy Carter blames the religious-right,and their impact on politics, for the deterioration of our society and our politics.
Bill, if you are correct, Jimmah has truly gone off the deep end. As Reagan might say, “there he goes again”.
Ansel, it’s nice to have another positive thinker in the mix here. We have problems in the US, but does anyone notice that people from all over the world are standing in line (or sneaking over the line) to get here? This continues to be the best place to live in the world by far and people voting with their feet proves that. But I will say all of us have to be especially cautionary about purported sure fire solutions, the energy magic bullet so to speak. I have seen a lot of well intentioned people, who, when they find out a government grant is available, would say the moon is made out of cream cheese to get the grant.
I think it is good for America to use up as much of the oil from other countries as we can afford to buy. Consume their raw material, and use our technological expertise to convert it into valuable plastic products.
It is senseless to waste resources through urban sprawl and population growth. A policy of reducing the population, including the immigrants, would be much a much more effective method of reducing energy consumption than marginal efforts at technological innovation with a maximum theoretical return of 5%.
The title of Barry Werth’s compelling but somewhat cursory new book, “31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today,” refers to the tumultuous period following President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation — a period in which President Gerald R. Ford tried to stabilize a country reeling from Watergate, reach a decision about pardoning his disgraced predecessor and establish an administration of his own. Those 31 days and the ensuing months were a period in which some of the key players in the current Bush administration — most notably Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney — rose to power and established their mastery of intra-administration battles, a period that in some respects serves as a bookend to our own.
from the NYT
Sounds like the typical pseudo-intellectual fairy tale we have come to expect from the New York Times.
Great column. It especially resonated with me, since my 37 year old husband just signed up for the Army Reserves yesterday. we have two kids (7 and 5), he’s got a great job (Constituional lawyer) and we have a nice life.
I asked him before he took the oath, “Did you see about Iran’s nuclear capabilties? There’s no telling what the next few years will hold for the American military.”
And he said, “all the more reason to join.”
There are people like him out there. We should all try to step up.
Nancy
God bless you, and him.
Nancy, we all honor your husband for his voluntary duty to country. May he be safe at all times.
Thank you Lee and Dave! We really appreciate the prayers and wishes. The kids and I are doing situps with him every night to help him prepare for Basic training!
This should be interesting.
Nancy, I too join in with Lee and Dave. Even though I was opposed to starting the war in Iraq, I still think 1) we have to see it through, and 2) I respect and value highly those who join in out of conviction and go, which includes some personal friends of my own. One or two people on this blog call me a coward for that, for whatever reason I cannot fathom.
What I am trying to say is that, while I cannot write for everyone, I believe that even most of us who are not right-wing are still behind your husband and your family.
Nancy, please give your husband our thanks.
Best of luck to your husband and your family, Nancy.
The current issue of Popular Mechanics has a good comparison of the various vehicle fuels and their costs. Hydrogen today is about the equivalent of $35.00 a gallon gasoline.
Same here, Nancy. Please thank your husband on behalf of us all. And thank you for your support of him; I know that’s not easy.
God bless you all.
And Lee: Yes, you’re right; it is. Today.
Brad, when have nothing to say, it is best to say nothing.