Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Because I am going to ask you, too, to take action, and it won't always be easy and comfortable, but it will
be the right thing to do for the present and especially for our future.
As you read this, there are millions of people in the fossil fuel industry working to produce more energy
to give us more ability to flourish, but their freedom to produce energy and our freedom to use it are in
jeopardy. And as you read this, there is a real, live, committed movement against fossil fuels that truly
wants to deprive us of the energy of life. That movement is named the Green movement. To understand
how to defend fossil fuels, we must understand the attack, who is attacking, why, and how.
THE ATTACK ON OUR FOSSIL FUTURE
Around the world, in whatever country you live in and maybe the state or city you live in, there are oppor-
tunities to produce fossil fuel energy—and almost without exception there are forces conspiring to stop it
or that have already stopped it.
In California, where I live, we have perhaps the greatest oil opportunity in the United States, called the
Monterey Shale. The companies who want to produce oil there say it has the potential to produce billions
of barrels of oil—that's hundreds of billions of gallons of the most coveted energy source on Earth, in
a state with arguably the biggest economic problems in the United States.
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Others, including our Energy
Information Administration, claim that the deposit has much less potential, but then, many great oil form-
ations, from Saudi Arabia to North Dakota, were once believed to have no potential. I say, let compan-
ies find out. There is no movement in support of the Monterey Shale—but there is a massive movement
against it.
This is the story throughout the United States, where shale energy technology, in my view the most ex-
citing technology of our generation, has already been the biggest boon to our economy in the last ten years,
and it's just getting started. Or maybe it's just getting stopped. In New York, it's stopped by a moratori-
um.
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As I write this, the citizens of Colorado are seriously considering banning it throughout the state.
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In
California, I'll fight for it, but it may well get stopped here.
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Or take the coal industry. The United States has been called the Saudi Arabia of coal. Coal is the one
source of energy we can be certain can provide energy for as many people as necessary—there are over
three thousand years of recoverable reserves at current usage rates.
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With the right economics and tech-
nology, it can be converted into oil fuels, gas fuels, plastics, et cetera. Just consider that. With the right
infrastructure, this is a source of energy that we
know
could take billions of people from not being able to
power a fan to cool them down or a radiator to keep them warm all the way to central air-conditioning and
heating. Not that it would be easy—energy is just one part of development, which requires rule of law and
economic freedom, among other things—but we can count on the coal industry to produce all the energy
that is needed.
Shouldn't that inspire support?
Culturally, it never seems to. Coal is “dirty,” as if it's the only energy source that has risks and side ef-
fects, and as if it doesn't have the benefit of being the hope for billions of people to have a better, healthier
life.
In the United States, we have a place in Wyoming called the Powder River Basin, one of the greatest
coal deposits of all time, mined with state-of-the-art mining technology that can extract more coal from
