Going Green is Good

Posted by Paul J. Amore on 06.19.2009

The unconsidered consequences of switching to renewable energy

I'm in favor of renewable energy. . . well, no, that's a poor term, energy isn't really renewable per se, what with entropy and all, but you know what I mean. Non-fossil-fuel energy. Green energy. Hydroelectric. Geothermal. Solar. That's the one we all want. Big shiny solar panels covering the Sahara and the Gobi just sucking up the UVs and turning them into electricity or hydrogen or gasoline. Or maybe a Dyson sphere out in space, rotating with the earth so the sunny side stays sunny. That's the green dream. And I'm for it.

Because here's the consequences of that kind of energy production:

Electric bills will be a thing of the past. No one will ever be told in the winter to put on a sweater, not when you can just raise the thermostat to 80 Fahrenheit. Conversely in the summer, when you come in from the outdoors, you can have your air conditioner pour out air the same temperature as your freezer until you're comfortable, then return it to room temperature. Why bother being efficient? We've got enough energy. In fact, you could just leave your freezer door open all the time. No sense having to waste time and effort closing it when we can just use more energy.

Let's talk about vehicles. With all this energy, we can build engines as powerful as we like. No more mpgs, no more gas stations with big prices on display. You'll be able to get a giant machine that seats ten comfortably, goes from zero to 100 mph in 2 seconds, and can be driven at that speed safely, since the side panels can be made extra robust—we don't care how much the thing weighs, just add more horsepower—and in the event of a catastrophic collision, just load the thing up with energy absorbing cushions between the cabin and the hull. In fact, once that's done it'll be perfectly acceptable to drive while talking on a hand-held cell phone while eating with the other hand and peeking at SpongeBob out of the corner of your eye on the dashboard TV .

This is just the consumer side. Think about what that amount of energy would do for businesses. When a factory's energy costs are none, it makes far more sense to use machine labor than human labor, which is a cost-cutting double whammy. Plus they can produce products that are bigger and bulkier since transportation and storage also cost less. Give us the green energy, please, so that profits can skyrocket across the country.

I'm deliberately being extreme here; obviously a few thousand mirrors aren't going to usher in this sort of lifestyle. But I do have a point with this. Energy is the means to an end, that end being human utility. People doing what they want to do and enjoying themselves for it. Not gathering around an arboretum and gazing at the flowers and enjoying their self-righteousness for being good stewards of the planet.

So here's a question and a bit of food for thought. Does the outcome of green energy I described disturb you? If so, then consider if it's really the concrete issue of energy you're concerned with, and not whether you simply don't like the jerk in the SUV. And if that's the case, then question whether that dislike is really worth political correction.

Post Script: Someone did answer the last article's trivia question correctly. . . and posted as a guest! I mean what is the point of that? Well, congratulations #2358, John Adams is the answer.