Green New Deal: Fact versus Fiction

Wow, a liberal guy, the former editor of Popular Mechanics, says the Green New Deal is a bad idea. You could have asked me. Yes, I still want fresh air, safe drinking water, and cheap energy, however, current alternative energy sources such as solar and wind energy are poor providers. To make current renewables work we have to solve the battery issue.

Batteries are toxic, use a large amount of fossil fuel to produce, and are extremely hazardous to dispose of. If we solve the battery problem of storage, toxic chemicals, and disposal, it might make the eleven to twenty-two percent solar cells efficiency reasonable.

Storing and producing energy closer to the user is more efficient. A lot of energy is lost in the transmission of power from the say, a dam on a river to a city many miles and sometimes hundreds of miles away. It is also expensive and dangerous to maintain the powerlines running across the country.

It is uncertain what new technology or discovery will help the world's energy problems. The certainty is that scientist, engineers, and inventors are working to solve our energy needs.

From my own research, I know that we should stop building more wind farms. Wind turbines are inefficient, need constant cleaning, and are difficult and dangerous to maintain. We should use the money to build solar arrays. They are easier and safer to clean and maintain,  simple to upgrade and work in most areas of our country.

I also like nuclear power. New designs are small and powerful enough to run a small city of fifty to sixty thousand people. They use golfball size fuel to make energy and are much safer than traditional nuclear power plants. Another advantage of a local power plant is there is less energy loss from the transmission of the electrical power. These plants are also easier to harden against terrorist attacks and electrical magnetic pulses (EMPs) generated by high altitude nuclear detonations.

I can go on and on about alternative energy power generation. A friend of mine and I in Hawaii proposed the building of a plasma gasification plant. It would solve a big problem for the island state by getting rid of some landfills that use up precious real estate and as a by-product produce much-needed electricity. There are a lot more ideas where that came from but for right now I will end it here.