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America is the land of the free, a melting pot of dreamers. A nation weary of war and weather has become downtrodden. The impacts of global ‘weirding’ have finally reached U.S. soil and many of us are nervous that our cozy lifestyle is being threatened. Change is inevitable, we know, yet it is unnerving that we don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes. How will the energy crisis be solved? Is it possible to solve it without widespread chaos caused by soaring prices and volatility? This question, rarely spoken, worries nearly all of us. Who will lead us into a safer, energy-independent future that does not require America to bully the world with military muscle and intimidation? Is any political party capable of connecting with us? Or will big oil, big coal, and the military-industrial complex continue to control politicians of both parties? Will hubris and complacency usher us down the path of other great fallen civilizations? Because energy is our nation’s largest industry, by far, could its problems wreck household budgets enough to shatter the economy? Could a sudden – or gradual – collapse of the world’s lone superpower really happen?

These are the questions that most Americans, poor, rich, or middle class, blue or red states, minority or majority, all wrestle with in their blogs, neighborhoods, churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. Yet the American Dream is still very much alive. Even now, passionate patriots are working hard in their communities on solutions that can fix America.

America has many challenges to be sure, but one problem stands out above all others: our myopic energy policy. This short-sighted thinking, combined with a persistent Cold War mentality among old guard business and political leaders, leads to anger and resentment towards America abroad. That in turn incites terrorism and military conflict. After all, 1950’s thinking suggests that military conquests are a perfectly acceptable solution to protect crude oil, and blindly assumes that oil is paramount to national security! Of course this utter ridiculousness exacerbates regional military conflicts, budget deficits, trade deficits, violent weather, and widespread economic hardship. It’s all related, but you already knew that. What many don’t know is what to do about it. The United States, with only about 5% of the world’s population, gulps a quarter of the world’s oil and belches over a third of the world’s greenhouse gases out of smokestacks and tailpipes. Shame on us for setting such a foolish and embarrassing example!

The good news is, solutions exist. Over time, the symptoms will disappear. If we act soon enough, the economy won’t collapse. What is required is a complete overhaul of the largest industry in America: energy. Even better news is that the solutions that have the best chance of succeeding do not rely on any government administration. In my humble opinion, any proposal that depends on Washington DC and/or state governments for more than a few years will fail miserably. The energy industry is so enormous the switch to cleaner, domestic power sources will take a decade or more. No President or Congress can hold onto power long enough to guarantee the conversion. And any policy drivers enacted today could be reversed by future politicians with a different agenda.

The best solutions available today include The Freedom Plan, those proposed by The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), and The Apollo Alliance (although this one relies heavily on government support), although other more elegant solutions may appear. Some teasers: a combination of energy efficiency, lightweight carbon fiber cars, and renewables could completely eliminate American dependence on foreign oil in about 20 years (RMI); algae fed by municipal wastewater could produce enough clean bio-diesel for every car and truck in America for only $300 billion and then $50 billion a year (UNH); distributed generation of renewably produced methane, solar, wind, biomass and geothermal could power the country and produce all the bio-fuels and H2 the nation needs locally (Apollo, others). In 10 years The Freedom Plan, which may be America’s only market-driven solution that can succeed merely using grass-roots efforts (translation: zero support from the government), describes how Midwestern winds could power the entire country’s electric grid four times over plus make enough hydrogen from water – at night when lights are off – to power every car and truck in America. Local pockets of hope exist as passionate individuals from all walks of life (and all political affiliations) promote these and other clever solutions.

America is going to make it. We can, and will, lead the world in this massive transformation of the planet’s largest industry. Take pride in the entrepreneurial spirit that this great nation is famous for. It will take action on the part of many individuals to support these grass roots efforts, but many people will eagerly join this exciting new clean power revolution. Pay heed, things will get worse – perhaps much worse – before they get better. No worries; the American dream is coming alive again in a big way. We’ll tighten our belt, become more energy efficient, and find our way through this energy mess…just like America has overcome every other obstacle she has faced.

Readers Comments

Date

Comment

Rodney Adams
10.10.05

I agree with many of the comments and philosophies expressed above, but I disagree with the proposed solution.

Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute have been talking about energy conservation and efficiency as a low cost method of solving our energy supply problems for decades. Despite the fact that there are lots of existing incentives, and the fact that no one is stopping them from implementing their projects by regulations restricting their chosen technologies, their proposals have not made much impact on our overall energy consumption.

Even the often touted "fact" that America now produces far more units of GNP per unit of energy expended is a rather questionable accomplishment. We have simply exported most of our energy intensive manufacturing to other countries, and the energy invested in producing the finished imported products do not show up as energy expenditures tracked by our statistical agencies.

This patriotic American is working with a number of like minded people on a better solution - one that has proven its ability to take market share from coal, oil and gas DESPITE incredible efforts by dedicated armies full of people that actively OPPOSE and RESTRICT nuclear power developments.

Uranium and plutonium based energy production has pushed oil out of several rather large markets - electricity generation in the US, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Taiwan, and South Korea and ship propulsion in icebreakers, submarines and US aircraft carriers - and stands poised to win in several new markets over the next several decades.

Atomic energy is clean enough to run inside submarines and cheap enough to supply overnight power at about $20 per megawatt in a market where competitive sources cost $40-120 per megawatt.

Shifting our energy infrastructure to take full advantage of this new (basic physical process was only discovered during the lifetimes of many people that are still walking around) alternative beats trying to make ancient and uncompetitive wind, solar and conservation do jobs that they are not capable of doing.

Len Gould
10.11.05

I agree with much except the optomistic closing. It appears to me that the US is so entangled in special interest initiated regulation (much of it in place for reasons that are in no way obvious, eg. completely ridiculous auto safety regulation whose primary effect, as intended by its promoters, is to make it financially impossible for any true inovation to occur in road transport. Many others similar) From surveying US news and entertainment media, i've concluded that most people who a couple of generations ago would have been developing the replacement auto drivetrain etc., are now "expressing their creativity" by fabricating wierdly useless motorcycles, monsterr trucks, or pointless retro hotrod or racing cars. I can't blame them, given the insurmountable regulators and financial barriers to entry to the real "shows", but would suggest the future is less bright than the author depicts.

Len Gould
10.11.05

It also appears the US (both the Clinton and Bush admins are at fault here) is not shy YET of offending available stable sources of energy.

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e6904c85-77a4-4627-b17e-30e7fa0401a5&page=1

[QUOTE] The meetings in Beijing follow a pointed speech by (Canadian) Prime Minister Paul Martin last week in New York that warned the Bush administration it may be jeopardizing secure access to Canada's energy when it undermines NAFTA by ignoring the recent softwood lumber ruling.

''Now is a good time to go to China and hold talks about increasing our energy exports,'' Mr. McCallum said. [/QUOTE]

It is a bad move imho to offend the Westerners in Canada, as this "softwood lumber tarrif" fiasco has. Westerners in Canada are the only natural constituency in Canda that most US politics ever had.

William Roberts
10.11.05

I decided to "Google" Troy Heming and here is some of what I discovered:

http://www.securities.state.ks.us/proceed/synops02/kansaswind.html

http://straighttalk.ourfuture.org/dsp_fact_story.cfm?blog_ID=1&bge_id=2718

It seems Mr. Helming is the founder and ceo of Krystal Planet. His company is actually a multi level marketing scheme that, amongst other things, promotes some type of green tag product he calls Future Wind.

The multi level marketing industry has a very cloudy image and at the very least is suspect wherever it is applied. From the results of the google search it appears that Mr. Helming was at one time a top leader, marketer and earner with a tax services multi level company that was shut down by the government and had some of it's leadership jailed. It also appears he has violated the Kansas Securities Act and been ordered to cease and desist from selling unregistered securities and engaging in business as broker-dealers or agents.

I would think anyone contemplating working with him or his energy company would be wise to at least take a long wary look at his history and his motvation before making any commitments.

Question: What do you have when you remove the spots from a leopard?

Answer: A Leopard.

Troy Helming
10.11.05

I want to thank Mr. Roberts for his comments. He's right, you should do your due diligence on me, all of my management team, and Krystal Planet before joining our great company or any other potential business opportunity.

However, since his comments have nothing to do with my article about converting America to clean power and appear to merely be a direct attack on me and my company, I suppose I owe it to the thousands of customers we've acquired over the last 3 years to respond to his disparaging statements. Yes, we definitely use a form of Direct Selling, although it's not multi-level, it is Referral Based Marketing which is a powerful customer acquisition method used by Citigroup/Primerica, Pampered Chef (owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway), and many more successful companies. I absolutely love referral based marketing, as it gives anyone who wants to start a new part-time/full-time career an opportunity to create a lucrative new income stream. I've seen many families revolutionize the quality of their lives and create financial freedom in the direct selling industry. Our independent dealers sell wind, solar, and hydrogen systems from our 50-page catalog as well as energy savings products. Our FutureWind service, one of many products & services we sell, helps build new utility-scale wind turbines.

I have recently fired a few incompentent former employees and independent contractors. These disgruntled individuals have posted false and misleading statements about myself and their former company (e.g. Straightalk). Legal action against these individuals is underway and corrective action is expected soon. Additionally, Mr. Roberts' comment regarding the Kansas Securities commission is incorrect. Clearly there is a misunderstanding. There was no violation of any statutes. In fact, my efforts on this issue (attempting to set up a wind energy cooperative), contributed to the passing of KS HB2018 two years later which formally allows any party to set up a renewable energy electric cooperative. I welcome any inquiry into my past, or the operations of my company and its management. Why? I go to bed every night knowing we are on the right path.

Finally, anyone reading my article should take it for what it is: a plea to all Americans to consider supporting The Freedom Plan and other elegant solutions as possible alternatives to our country's myopic dependence on dirty fossil fuels. To Mr. Roberts and any other naysayers, I welcome your additional comments. This is one thing I love about America: the opportunity for open dialogue and debate about important issues! To my former employees, tread carefully: any negative energy you put out there has a way of coming back multiplied.

Peter Ken
10.11.05

From his enthousiasm for nuclear energy, I take it that Mr Rodney Adams is not at all opposed against building a nuclear waste storage in his backyard, so his family, children, grandchildren and many more generations to come can enjoy the fun of watching (and paying for guarding and protecting) this glowing place.

A cheaper method of course is rocketing it all to the sun, so it can add to the energy we already receive for free from this natural resource....

Now on a more serious note: I wish like many other people there was an easy solution to the waste side of nuclear energy, because that would indeed be the perfect source. I do however take my responsibility and do not support an energy source that will eat resources for many generations to come.

Saving energy is (part of) the best and cheapest answer to solve the current problems. We have much to learn from Japanese and European societies, and none of the techniques used there are rocket science or demand high investments. Simple things like using the correct tire pressure in your car do not even require money out the pocket, but can make a 10% difference in gas usage....do you check your tire pressure weekly? Do you switch off the light in your garden at night? Do you recycle so less raw materials must be used?

The only thing that needs changing is attitude, and the best way to do this are high energy prices and proper education....

By the way, I do switch off my computer when not in use....

Rodney Adams
10.13.05

Though my actual backyard is a bit small for a used nuclear fuel storage facility, I would have no problem living, working and raising a family very close to such a facility - as long as the designers make an effort to make it esthetically pleasing. The volume of waste produced by nuclear plants is tiny and the material is generally a solid ceramic material that is essentially impervious to damage.

I have direct, first hand experience with used nuclear fuel storage areas - I am not concerned about any hazards and I have yet to find a single example of anyone who has been hurt by exposure. I am not saying that the material is harmless, just that it does not cause any harm when it is properly handled.

The fact that there will be some responsibility for continuing that safe handling into the future does not worry me, everything that we build will require some form of maintenance into the future. Future generations can handle that, in fact, they might appreciate the jobs. I am also pretty sure that my off-spring will thank me for supporting efforts to gather slightly used nuclear fuel into an easily accessible storage location so that they can use it in more creative ways to produce even more power and other fantastic new applications.

You can save all of the energy that you want, but at some point you will hit a point where there is no further efficiency to be gained. At that point, you will still need some form of energy to move you where you want to go, to heat your food, to cool your beer, and to ensure that you are not too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. I firmly believe that the best (cleanest, cheapest, most reliable) available source of that power is contained inside atomic nuclei.

Rodney Adams
10.13.05

P. S. to Mr. Peter Ken - yes, I do recycle (fortunately I live in an area with weekly curbside pick-up). I also drive a car with properly inflated tires that gets 45-50 MPG and have recently begun carpooling.

I am pushing hard to implement a telecommuting option for appropriate people in my office. I do not leave any lights on in my garden, and I have chosen computers that consume almost no electricity when they are sleeping. (I do leave them on over night - that is when back-ups, maintenance routines and podcast downloads work best for me.)

Thanks for asking.

Todd McKissick
10.14.05

At first glance, Mr. Helming, your article appears to be a very well thought out call to arms for doing the right thing. It's actually very inspiring! Certain statements ring true along the lines that Mr. Gould has outlined in that only a market driven solution has a fighting chance to out pace the corruption of our current social atmosphere.

However, after following up as Mr. Roberts did, I came away with a different impression. If you were truly as interested in solving the problem as you portray yourself to be, how can you actively promote such a weak solution to such a grand problem? I would have expected such vigor to have led you to enough due dilligence as to come up with a more viable alternative. Your statement that " winds could power the entire country’s electric grid four times over plus ..." is simply false. Let alone "Midwestern" winds alone and having it provide extra energy for hydrogen generation. No unbiased or un-vested person or study I've seen has put wind anywhere close to that potential. I don't think you thought through the part where it would lead to the entire midwest skyline littered with spinning blades. (It's pronounced NIMBY)

In addition to that, my humble opinion thinks that if you don't think that a government solution is going to work, why would you spend a single dime worrying about changing laws and regulations when you could put that money into some emerging company's research kitty to get their solution to market faster. Now there's a real market based solution. But what's even better is that it is driven by actual product rather than paying lots of people for reports and gathering more money and lobbying and all the other activities which the government is famous for. Holy cow, can you imagine a type of society where a product that makes money is sold at a profit which supports more manufacture to support higher demand... all because the product actually competes economically without relying on regulations or subsidies? There's a really neat word for that. Capitalism.

If you disagree that better solutions exist, try checking out the economics of solar thermal electric and its past/current offerings. It's potentially economical right now as well as carries none of the drawbacks of it's competitors.

I do commend your effort, but would like to see it directed toward actually making a difference rather than promoting the promotion of the idea of a solution. Now I'm even confused.

Ferdinand E. Banks
10.14.05

Thank you Peter Ken for reminding me of something. When the Nobel laureate John Nash appeared on the Swedish TV program 'Snillen Speculerar' (= genius speaks), he proposed rocketing nuclear waste into space, although he did not specify the sun as its final designation. In case anyone associated with this forum is planning a remake of that half-baked travesty 'A Beautiful Mind', let me suggest that they include Mr Nash's thoughts on this subject, preferably rendered in the Princeton faculty club. I hope though that these thoughts are not rendered by Russel Crowe, because I found Mr Crowe's work and body language at the blackboard inspiring.

Although this may not be the place to mention it, the Nobel Prize that Professor Nash received was no more than a generalization of the work done by Augustin Cournot in the middle of the l9th century. Nash probably cranked that contribution out in a half hour, or less. The gentleman who arranged Nash's prize also arranged this year's prize for the same topic, game theory. Now, I'm not sure of just what that scholar has in mind, but if I were forced to guess I would guess that it had something to do with himself receiving that prize for his own work on game theory, which I would describe as supremely dispensable unless there is also a movie in his future.

Hope of the American Dream

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