Something that I’ve come at odds with my friends about many times is the subject of alternative energy. My left-wing nut job friends think that I’m overly conservative and should open my mind to the global economy panacea. On the other hand, my right-wing nut job friends think that I’ve been exposed to the left-winged for far too long at university and that I’ve been brainwashed.

So, obviously the hippies want to protect Mother Earth and stop polluting. Not that I’m for polluting, but it’s no so much about about saving the environment that has me concerned for America’s energy.

Rise and Fall of an Economy

America’s economic rising happened around the turn of the 20th century due to the wide adoption of the railroad, mass production of the automobile, and getting back on our feet after the Civil War. While the U.S. Government spent way more money than they ever had in building our national railroad infrastructure, the return on that investment was that it was now (relatively) quick to get gold out of the Rockies, textiles out of the South, and cars out of the North. The key here is that spent the money on infrastructure.

Fast forward to present day. While the U.S. is still a major economic power, what do we give to the world to make us so? We’re number one in research, medicine, technological development and online commerce. Meanwhile, we outsource the labor to build and implement the fruits of our research and development to other countries because…it’s cheaper. I understand the idea of outsourcing, but I think it’s dangerous to the extent to which we’ve done it. I mean, it’s more profitable to build elsewhere and ship to the U.S., the world’s largest consumers….or it was.

With rising oil prices, the cost of transportation of goods around the world and around the country is rapidly increasing. That cost is past on to the consumer, where it always goes. The cost of living goes up and our service-based jobs have to pay more to keep us afloat. The problem with a service-based economy, which we have certainly become, is that there’s no tangible goods to hold value. There is a tipping point where it is worth it to me to learn how to do your job rather than paying you to do it for me. Take into account the multitude of programs that brings in students from around the world, trains them in schools and internships, and then sends them home to build a business there. Now, in addition to outsourcing our manufacturing and labor, we can hire someone in India, or where ever to perform our services for cheaper.

Well, if we are outsourcing our service-based economy, where does that leave us?

A New Economy

In my research as a computer scientist, I’ve worked a lot on projects funded by the Department of Energy. Much of the research is for energy reliability. Recently with all the buzz of “Green Energy”, I’ve been working on a project to develop self-sustaining “micro-powergrids”. These grids are like neighborhood level. Everybody is happy and whistles as they go to work and share energy with their neighbor in a very “Leave it to Beaver” type of world.

Now, the target for this type of research is sensible. It’s actually designed to provide reliable power to third-world countries like some of those in Africa which do not have electricity all the time, or even most of the time. In these types of scenarios, it makes sense to pay the overhead of “free”, renewable energy because it’s cheaper than importing coal or maintaining a national power grid. These renewable energy systems do not make sense for the United States because we already have a national power grid in place, we already have coal and nuclear power, and alternative energy is currently extremely expensive.

Here’s where my right-wing nut Job friends stop listening to my argument. I think we could continue to research and develop alternative energy solutions. We should stop dumping all our money into foreign oil. Right now, we’re friendly with many nations, or at least economically advantageous for them to work with us. The Middle East is an incredibly unstable political arena. Why the hell would we want to make that as our primary energy source? You have the oil companies in the Middle East that are jacking up the cost of oil because…well..who knows why they do it. Maybe because they can and it makes them richer. Maybe it’s because the political turmoil increases their operating costs. Maybe it’s a combination or something completely different.

If the U.S. economy can get off of our dependence on foreign oil, it gives us a multitude of benefits:

• More jobs
• A stronger economy because we have a new industry to compete in: energy
• A stronger national defense
• A cleaner environment

Bringing a focus on energy in the United States will mean increased research in our top-notch universities. We get workers skilled in engineering tomorrow’s energy systems. These energy systems, when renewable, we can sell to other countries so that they can work towards a “greener” planet. Mass production of anything makes it cheaper, so we can lower the cost of renewable energy eventually. Who knows, maybe researchers will figure out how to make a warp drive and we can build a whole Federation Fleet (nerd reference to Star Trek, here). In addition to the skilled engineers, we also get the blue collar workers that run the industry.

So that covers the first two bullets. A stronger national defense is really what I’m concerned about and I think is our best reason for doing this. Foreign energy markets are unstable. The more we rely on them, the more we put ourselves in a dangerous position. Those who fail to remember lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. Germany lost the war not because of our superior tactics and weaponry. They had us beat on that. They lost the war because they ran out of resources.

Anyone that has every played StarCraft or Command and Conquer knows that when you run out of minerals, oil, or gold, you’re screwed until you can find another place to harvest. If we went to war, or one of our allies went to war with Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or wherever we buy all our oil…we get stuck up the proverbial creek without a paddle. We have enough oil reserve to meet our daily demand for 30 days. We cannot build our off-shore drilling infrastructure in 30 days.

It Won’t Work

So how are we supposed to reach this panacea of cheap energy? We use our national resources. As the right-wingers will happily point out, we have enough oil reserves in the U.S. to last us thousands of years. The Midwest also flourishes with cheap electricity thanks to readily available coal. Using that to keep the cost low, we can continue energy research to make “Green” energy cheaper.

Flat out, it doesn’t make sense for our entire society (in the US) to jump to wind generators, solar, and geothermal energy. It just isn’t possible with the current related costs. The government gives subsidies to make it affordable for the consumer, but that isn’t sustainable and won’t make a difference in the industry. The big players are industrial uses of energy.

There is great value in cutting our oil consumption to the point that we can provide for ourselves, however. Reducing our dependence on foreign energy sources ensures that we won’t get the carpet yanked from beneath us in time of crisis.

Finally, continuing and increasing research in energy will take us to the next competitive industry. We will, once again, be able to export durable goods and strengthen the U.S. economy, while making energy cheaper for ourselves.

UPDATE: I’ve seen several commercials in the last couple of days pushing energy independence through natural gas, which is something that I didn’t include above. I do think that coal is cheap enough, even with restrictive systems to make it “clean”, to make a great electrical power source and fuel for vehicles like trains. Which is a whole different rant. I think we are drastically under-utilizing our railroad system. It is outdated, agreed, but some infrastructure improvement here would go a long way.