Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
fossil fuels and nuclear power to last thousands and thousands of years, and by then, hopefully, we'll have
fusion (a potential, far superior form of nuclear power) or even some hyperefficient form of solar power.
The amount of raw matter and energy on this planet is so incomprehensibly vast that it is nonsensical
to speculate about running out of it.
Telling us that there is only so much matter and energy to create
resources from is like telling us that there is only so much galaxy to visit for the first time. True, but irrel-
evant.
Sustainability is not a clearly defined term. According to the United Nations, it has over a thousand in-
terpretations, but the basic idea is “indefinitely repeatable.”
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For example, the idea of renewability, which
is usually synonymous with sustainability in the realm of energy, is that the fuel source keeps replenishing
itself over and over without the need to do anything different.
But why is this an ideal? In most realms, we accept and desire
constant change.
For example, you want
the best phone with the best materials, regardless of whether those materials will be there in two hundred
years and regardless of whether it would be more “renewable” to use two cups and a string.
Why should we want to use solar panels or windmills over and over (leaving aside the fact that they
quickly deteriorate and thus require a continuous series of mass-mining projects) if they keep giving us ex-
pensive, unreliable energy? Why not use the best, the most
progressive
form of energy at any given time,
recognizing that this will change as we advance and the best becomes better?
At the beginning of this topic, we observed that human beings survive by using ingenuity to transform
nature to meet their needs—i.e., to produce and consume resources. And we observed that the motive
power of transformation, the amplifier of human ability, the resource behind every other resource, is en-
ergy—which, for the foreseeable future, means largely fossil fuel energy. There is no inherent limit to en-
ergy resources—we just need human ingenuity to be free to discover ways to turn unusable energy into
usable energy. This opens up a thrilling possibility: the
endless potential for improving life through ever
growing energy resources helping create ever growing resources of every kind.
This is the principle that
explains the strong correlation between fossil fuel use and life expectancy, fossil fuel use and income,
fossil fuel use and pretty much anything good: human ingenuity transforming potential resources into ac-
tual resources—including the most fundamental resource, energy.
Growth is not unsustainable. With freedom, including the freedom to produce energy, it is practically
inevitable. We are not eating the last slice of pizza in the box or scraping the bottom of the barrel; we are
standing on the tip of an endless iceberg.
This is a thrilling prospect for everyone in the world—and certainly for those who live in resource
poverty. And if we keep creating resources, I think my future grandchildren will think of my generation of
Americans in 2014 as having lived in resource poverty.
HOW USING FOSSIL FUELS ADVANCES FUTURE GENERATIONS
Let's apply the idea of resource creation to the concerns that today's activities are harming future genera-
tions, whom the opponents of fossil fuels often focus on.
I do not have children myself, so I know I cannot relate to the perspective on the future that parenthood
gives you, but I think it's important for me to try to. So when I think about these issues, I try to think about
