What if we do nothing? (a response to posters at PickensEnergyPlan.com) Click this link…

 It seems that what I am reading here are on one hand some people with objections based on knowledge of current wind power technology and on the other hand people who say “Gee, I guess it can’t hurt.” Using the ‘I am throwing my hands up in the air ‘ rationale can be dangerous right now. The odds are better that doing nothing with wind power is less dangerous than proceeding. As you see, I am a skeptic.

I received an invitation on my blog to visit this site and it has taken me a few days to arrive. Initially I was dead set against this project and now I am passively (almost passively) waiting for public opinion. I would think having fewer than a dozen posts on this site says more than mere words. Where is the passion? Where is the public outcry after blowing millions of dollars on Ads?

Some say ‘we must do this’ and others say, ‘what can it hurt.’ We must do this? We do not have to do anything, but if we choose to act, should we chase the wind or build reactors or drill more oil, or mine more coal. I lean toward lots of reactors and oil and coal. These are sure fire energy producers. The return on investment is easy to calculate on reactors. The science has progressed and it is a mature technology. Coal is next easiest to project costs and returns, although mining is never a sure thing. Oil is the least easy to predict, but with oil we compete head to head with the Oil Producers. What are the value propositions? Which pieces will help us solve the larger question?

We do not just need energy. We need the right kinds of energy. We have heard rumors and innuendo about fantastic cars that run on water or this or that potion – snake oil, likely. Where are they? Why have they not been rushed into mass production? I don’t believe we can do without oil for our cars.

If you do not want oil for our cars, then you do not mind if we totally change the lifestyle of every American. Think before you pooh-pooh that statement. Mr. Pickens lives in BIG state of Texas. He knows that until someone develops the Star Trek ‘teleporter device’ that we need cars, trucks and planes to do the work of this nation as well as for our national defense. Many of those machines will run on stuff that comes out of a well. People, we can call them Americans, will need cars, trucks and planes to carry on the lives that represent the things FREE men do. Dependency on urban mass transportation is not a satisfactory answer. If it is the only answer, then we are done as a free nation.

For the last 25 years we have ceded the oil market to other countries. Now, we find ourselves beholden to those countries for our existence as Americans. No! I am not willing to define future Americans as timid little beings who live only in the 50 or 100 hub cities in which we would have to huddle, so we can ride our bikes and take the trolley to a station where we can catch a bus and a couple of transfers later get to our destination.

What forces would drive us into that public transportation scenario? Oil is a mark of rank/status among nations. It provides a psychological lift to the economy and the raises value of our currency. Without oil, we would suffer hyper-inflation and experience devastating devaluation of the dollar. Farming is dependent on oil. Without oil we fail to remain a supplier of grains to the world, indeed we may need to import grain as well as most other products. Of course, importing food depends on dependable air transportation. Without oil who can say the air transportation industry is healthy enough to meet our needs.

But we will have windmills enough to power our computers and in our little apartment caves we can communicate and do commerce, when the wind blows. Then, what happens when we are disillusioned by the poor output of the windmills and get tired of the dead birds literally getting whacked by the blades of the windmills. Do we decommission the windmills as they have done in some parts of California? Do we tear them down? Or do they become everlasting monuments to our monumental mistake?

Drill for oil. Dig for coal. Build Nukes.