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After my last post, I got an email from Megan's maternal grandfather, who is someone I always enjoy talking to. He always proves to be a wealth of knowledge, and this time is no different.

I was a chemical engineering student in the early 1940's. About 1943 one of my chemical engineering professors decried the use of petroleum as a fuel because of its high value as a base chemical for the manufacture of so many things. This still is true although manufacturing uses only about 2% of the total consumption. At that time, the known reserves of oil were expected to be exhausted by the 1980s. Obviously that wasn't the case. By that time there were more known reserves than there were in the forties. There still is a large amount of oil, but obtaining it is more expensive. Off shore drilling requires starting at a point where the sea floor is several thousand feet below the surface, then drilling several more thousand feet through the earth crust. Most certainly not inexpensive.

There is confusion and certainly a large amount of political correctness in the current discussions and proposals for energy. Obviously offshore drilling is not a renewable energy source. Like the current fad of making ethanol from corn, the purpose would be to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Everybody has to get in on the act, including T. Boone Pickens. I know that wind energy and solar energy are touted as the best sources of renewable energy. Unfortunately neither one is capable of producing enough energy in addition to being highly variable and weather dependent. Some time ago I looked up the solar constant and calculated the amount of acreage that would be required to produce the quantity of electric energy then being generated. I assumed 100% conversion which is not possible. The number, which I have forgotten, was a very large area. Solar energy conversion to heat or electricity is much more efficient now than it was then, about thirty years ago. But both windmill farms and solar energy collectors are wasteful of space and unsightly. Obviously nothing can be done with the ground which is covered with solar collectors.

The problem of energy generation and usage must be treated as a complete system. Nothing but false conclusions can be drawn thinking of only one facet of the problem. Consider how energy is used. The main users are transportation, heating and manufacturing. Currently the main sources of energy to be used either directly or after conversion to electricity are organic materials or nuclear reactors. Organic materials, and I'll stretch a point to include coal in that, are burned to produce heat which is either used directly or converted to electricity. A byproduct is carbon dioxide, which seems to be the main bad boy so far as global warming is concerned. Hydrogen so far as I know,is the only fuel which can be consumed to produce heat without also producing Carbon dioxide.

What then is to be done? Oil can be replaced by electricity in probably 100% of the cases when the user is stationary. Electricity can be produced by nuclear reactors, or by consumption of coal with all the gases captured and returned to the earth, i.e. clean coal combustion. Assuming that to be the case, this leaves transportation, or all movable consumers of energy. Hydrogen powered vehicles are in an experimental stage, and may be viable sometime. Trains or any other transportation which moves in a restricted manner can be powered by electricity. There will be a large capital investment but it surely can be done. That leaves aircraft. An engine might be developed that can use hydrogen, for example and be adapted for air use. I don't know the numbers to calculate whether an airplane could carry enough hydrogen to fly several thousand miles, but since no engine has been developed with the necessary amount of power, it's a moot question. Maybe we will have to forgo air travel, or reserve the very scarce oil reserves for air travel and take the consequent pollution.

I would add two notes, though.

1. I find windmills to be beautiful (I'm always in awe when I drive by them) and think that the knowledge that they were creating American jobs, bolstering our economy, being eco-friendly, and reducing or eliminating our dependence on foreign oil all at the same time would only make them more beautiful to me. But to be fair, I can imagine that if every hillside and every neighborhood was covered in them, they could start to get annoying.
   
2. Solar panels don't have to be laid on the ground, taking up valuable square footage. Anyone with a southward-facing rooftop and a clear view of the sky can install some solar panels on their roof and offset their own energy costs — or under the right conditions, even put more into the grid than they're taking out; resulting in the electric company cutting them a check every month instead of the other way around. That said, I understand that solar farms are using mechanical bases that tilt the panels to get the most for their exposure, and that isn't as friendly to the average consumer installation.

Even with those caveats, though, renewable energy is the right direction to go (Anyone care to disagree? Anyone? Bueller?), and we need to go there. Now! We need to break the status quo because as my good friend Dr. Horrible says, "The status is not quo."

It's been a while since I forced my political views on you, so I guess we're due, right?

Not only is John McCain falsely implying that he supports renewable energy, but what he actually is pushing for (offshore oil drilling) has proven time and time again that the juice is not worth the squeeze. (More on this in a minute…)

Even with perfect case studies like Denmark imposing high taxes on fossil fuels and driving innovation like recycling of waste heat from coal-powered energy plants for home heating and hot water, while simultaneously boosting their economy and creating new jobs in the process; it seems nothing can be defeated by the American Lowest Common Denominator. Not to mention the fact that somehow their citizens manage to work and survive with little to no gasoline usage. Gasp.

In 1973 we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East. Today it is zero.

And as if that wasn't enough to make me want to move to Denmark, their prime minister — Anders Fogh Rasmussen — is a friggin' genius:

I have observed that in all other countries, including in America, people are complaining about how prices of [gasoline] are going up. The cure is not to reduce the price, but, on the contrary, to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil. We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income — so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy.

Or if he's not a genius, at least he had the cohones to implement what every sane American Op-Ed writer has been harping on for years, and obviously, continues to harp on.

Republicans and other pro-drillers sing the chorus of "lower prices at the pump," totally ignoring the fact that it's been proven to harm the ecosystem. They'll ask you questions like why it's not ok to drill here, but it is ok to drill in the middle east. Answer: We can't make the middle east stop drilling, that's their responsibility. Our duty is to do what's right and to set the example.

They all brush off the fact that the few hundred thousand barrels of oil we could produce in a year (that's the max, from professional estimates) would be a drop in the bucket of our consumption: tens of millions of barrels per DAY. They say things like, "at least that's 200,000 less barrels we buy from the middle east, funding their terrorism" — and to a certain extent, that's true: We'll give them 296 billion dollars instead of 300 billion. I'm sure they really feel the loss.

And what about the end-game? I'll play devils advocate for a second: Let's assume that offshore drilling (a) wouldn't harm the environment, and (b) would produce a significant decrease in prices at the pump (let's define that as $2.50 / gallon or better). Then what? Do we just plan on drilling off of our own coastiline until the reserves dry up and deal with it then? How very short-sighted.

Obama has some of the top names in climate and renewable energy advising him. And while McCain is running around shouting "Drill Now!" Obama has a real sustainable energy policy.

So when you vote, think about which candidate is telling you what he thinks you want to hear, and which candidate is doing something to make sure we leave our children with a planet worth looking after. (Hint: Check the box not smeared over with oil.)

I was going to start this post by asking if you knew that I was born on Earth Day, but then I had the good sense to look it up, and found out that it's actually celebrated on the day after I graced Earth with my presence. Oh well, we'll deal, right? With a baby on the way, the pressure is on to pinch those pennies. And since I drive a big SUV, I'm a card-carrying member of the gas-pump-blues club. When gas hit $3.75, I started paying more than $75 to fill up after my gas light comes on (which happens more than I'd like to admit). This isn't a pity party though, and if it were, you wouldn't be invited. I don't like my situation, so I'm doing something about it.

The obvious fix is to get rid of the truck, and it is something we've carefully considered and decided against. We go camping and fishing (with our canoe) regularly and there's no way we could do those things with a compact car, let alone fit all of our stuff and the dog. We would end up taking two cars, defeating the purpose.

We have always limited use of the truck to necessary occasions, and always take wifey's car when going out together, and I use mass transit or telecommute where possible. But at $4.10+ per gallon now, I'm dreading my next trip to the pump.

Megan reads Readers Digest and showed me an article about some nutjob who can eek out 180mpg (in a hybrid) by — basically — driving slower. He despises hitting the brake, so he tries to time everything to where he coasts to a stop when he has to. He regularly takes turns at 50+ mph in order to not waste his downhill momentum. Obviously he's an extreme case, but it did make me think about how I can improve my own mileage, and soften the blow to my wallet a bit.

So lately I've been making a conscious effort to drive slower overall — going 55 as opposed to 70 on highways takes an average of about 3 minutes longer to get "there," but has improved my mpg by about 3 or 4. I'm more aware of my brake use and follow further behind people to allow me room to coast when they tap their brakes. I take my roof-rack (sail) off between uses. I try to stay on top of filling my tires with air if they get low (Wawa has free air), and so far I've been good about routine maintenance and oil changes. Put the windows down when driving less than 40mph, and use the Air Conditioner for anything above that — because having the windows down on the highway causes more drag-related gas efficiency loss than using the AC.

All in all, I've improved my mileage by about 4-8, up to about 18 now, and I hope to get it over 20 soon, and in the process I've decreased my stress and haven't had to make any significant sacrifices or changes to my lifestyle or schedule.

The only way to bring gas prices down is to reduce dependence. I'm doing my part… are you?