Our future energy needs assessed

The United Nations, in discussions with several nations worried about future energy needs, has predicted that the United States will need to build (close to) 130 new nuclear power plants, or 635 coal-fired power plants, or construct 475 water/tidal dams, to meet the energy needs of the country over the next 50 years just to maintain our current standards and exploding technology industries. And these figures are assuming only a 5 percent per year reduction in importing fossil fuels (and do not take into account the “drill here — drill now� lobby — nor the scream for electric cars).

All this is simple mathematics, really. Forget how much is spent on electricity, look at how many megawatt hours are needed daily (that means on average of a year, divided by 365). To start with, you also need to know we get our energy, converted into electricity, from several types of generating plants.

Currently there are 1,470 coal power plants, 3,743 oil burners, 5,439 natural gas ones, 105 other gas-powered plants (methane, etc.), 104 nuclear, 3,992 hydroelectric (dams, etc.), 389 wind, 38 solar, 346 wood/plant, 224 geothermal and 1,299 smaller biomass generators (mostly on farms). All of these produce, annually, a maximum of 11.4 million megawatt hours of electricity a day.

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Now comes the interesting arithmetic. (All numbers rounded off.) There are about 104 million homes in the United States. According to our government (and the energy suppliers), these houses consume 1,150 million megawatts a year. That’s only 3.15 million megawatts a day. Which leaves one to wonder, where’s the other 8.25 million megawatts each day going?

Well, we know that the New York subway system used to consume (1988) one-third of all the electricity used in New York state. And we know that big industry —buying in bulk — pays only anything from half a cent (industry) to $4 cents (offices) a kilowatt. So, yes, they are getting cheap electricity.

But since you and I, in our homes, are using less than 28 percent of the nation’s production, you have to wonder why we’re being told — using taxpayer money for public service TV advertising — to buy Energy Saving appliances, fluorescent bulbs and similar ecologically sound devices when industry is using 72 percent of the electricity produced. And let’s not forget that most of these generating plants were built, at least in part, with government funds (our taxes).

I’m all for economizing and saving the planet, but this focused attention on us as homeowners is a red herring, a false trail to the real problems which are not being dealt with.

For instance, the New York subway system has an active third-rail system at 800 volts that probably, even though modernized, cannot get past 20 percent efficiency (it was rated at 12 percent efficiency in 1988). Ever seen those aluminum smelting plants on the Discovery Channel? Those are electric arc furnaces using 1+ thousand megawatts of electricity, each, every day. Think they pay a fair price for all that juice?

We need aluminum, I get that. But at some point the taxpayer subsidy of power plant and power grid  should be reflected in a benefit to the U.S. economy. Does it? Well, partially, but 45 percent of all that aluminum is exported as raw ore (not refined and manufactured here with American jobs).

Overseas, it’s made into something and sold back to us at those Wal-Marts. Looked at fairly, our taxpayer dollar, the pollution from 1,470 coal power plants, and the loss of American jobs, is all a gift for some other country and paid for, by you again, at the retail level. When you add a “tax credit� for the export of those jobs (leaving behind the energy usage and pollution) the system is really unfair. And wasteful.

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Switzerland has a three times law. They make cheap hydro electrical power (and nuclear power). The benefits from that stay in the country because the aluminum gets smelted and then has to be rolled and then has to be made into something before it can leave the country. Switzerland has no unemployment, none. And they have no foreign loans either. And none of that has anything to do with their banks and secret bank accounts. Last year the banks there only produced 2 percent of the wealth of the country. Wall Street makes more than that (or did).

But Wall Street is thrilled with a company selling its tooling and equipment to, say, Mexico, firing all those costly U.S. employees and making more profit per piece. Some tycoon gets a dividend, the U.S. taxpayer and our national security gets the true bill and pollution to boot.

Will it be sensible to put electric cells on your roof to get a solar water heater to offset oil-heating costs? Sure. If it pays you to do so, why not? But let’s keep a wary eye on the real energy-guzzlers and the people who let them get away with it. We need industry, efficient industry that benefits this country, not merely a bunch of moneylenders and tax havens via Wall Street.

If we had effective laws in place — called regulation — we could make all the energy we can use, for all the jobs we can fill, for all the product we could consume and sell overseas —and probably not have to build all those new plants.

Why? Because if we kept the jobs here, if we built real wealth (again) here, we would not send raw ore, unfinished goods, machine parts and jobs overseas. Using aluminum as an example: 75 percent of the energy used in making aluminum is in the original smelting – sold in bulk by the thousands of tons. Rolling it and then making metal parts (cans etc.) uses less than 25 percent — and is sold by the piece.

So, what are we doing today? We spend the 75 percent energy and then give another country the cheaper energy bill to make the more expensive parts — which they sell back to us, which makes it harder to afford, so we work harder, longer hours, smelt more and export more ore.

All this is a vicious cycle. One we need to break. I believe in the capitalist system, a system that favors industry, fair wages and national resources being of benefit to the nation first. It may seem capitalist to make more profit as you slice U.S. jobs, export our work, spend our U.S. energy subsidizing foreign manufacture, but it really isn’t, it is an imperial sleight-of-hand which impoverishes America, ruins our balance of trade, and weakens the people.

It reminds me of a time I met Jack Smith, then the chairman of General Motors, who had announced he had staved off new government-mandated pollution control for five years or more, proving “of great benefit to our shareholders.�

My question to him was this: “Who do you think you will be selling cars to in 10 years if the foreign cars get a jump on you? The shareholders won’t thank you then.�

To the leaders of today, I would ask this: “In five years, who do you think will have any money to spend or pay taxes, if you keep exporting our national resources and jobs like this?�

The writer once lived in Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.