SansPretense

Hat tip to Small Dead Animals, Obama says something else that shows his lack of understanding; this time of science:

Mr. Obama, speaking in Las Vegas, implied that the U.S. might somehow do without the oil sands. “[T]he possibilities of renewable energy are limitless,” he declared. “We’ve heard promises about it in every State of the Union for the last three decades. But each and every year, we become more, not less, addicted to oil — a 19th-century fossil fuel.”

You know, the government spends a lot of money on research, and, at the same time, never enough. They keep making these promises to fund more science, and every year they keep cutting the budgets or not fulfilling their promises. However, that’s a seperate issue.

What I want to explain, really briefly and without citations, is why this is a dumb statement. How does Obama define limitless? If he means there is a limitless supply of sunlight, then he’s practically right. If he means there’s limitless possibilities for renewable energy, then he’s a moron. We don’t have that many options to replace oil, especially in terms of mobility. However, the environmentalists tend to tie our hands even more in this department.

Currently, the most efficient, cost effective, and safe method of producing electricity is through nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion would kick fission’s ass except we haven’t been able to make it work as an energy source…though it does make the best nuclear bombs. Anyway, the problem with fission is it generates a tiny (in comparison) amount of nuclear waste that we have to store somewhere for thousands of years (unless we want to shoot it into space or something, which is expensive). But, at least that doesn’t pollute the environment. We store it under a mountain, and after awhile it works fine. For some reason, the environmentalists don’t like this idea. So they cross this off the list, but really, it’s our best option.

Wind power and geothermal are too region specific and not very efficient. Hydroelectric is good, but it does disrupt our rivers, and thus is blocked by environmentalists. Again, none of what I mentioned is mobile. So it would not replace the need for oil.

What could? Well, solar power could, but that’s extremely expensive, extremely inefficient, and wouldn’t work at night. In short, without decades more in development, solar power will not be able to compete with oil/gasoline. Electric cars cannot run nearly as far as gas powered without hours of recharging, so they don’t work either - at least without another decade or two of work.

These set-backs aren’t because of lack of funding. It just takes time to get the research done. Scientists are still working on the fundamental problems; only after that is done can engineers start designing and marketing.

In short, for the next few decades, we’re stuck with oil. After that, we’re going to be limited on our options. The winning technology will emerge at some point, but to say that we have “limitless possibilities” is grossly misleading. As of now, the best we can do is improve gas mileage and buy hybrid cars. Also, we should be greatly expanding our nuclear power plants in this country.