Future fuels

Environmental consultant addresses energy sustainability

MOSES LAKE - A founder and ex-president of Greenpeace spent his time in Big Bend Community College's ATEC Building Tuesday doing a little mythbusting.

Patrick Moore is now the chair and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Limited.

During the course of his two-hour presentation, he revealed, amongst other things, how wood is the world's largest renewable energy resource, there is no solid evidence that humanity is behind the increasing carbon dioxide levels each year (although they are rising), there is a record level of Arctic Sea ice this year and today's society is currently residing within an Ice Age.

His presentation was sponsored by Grant, Chelan and Douglas public utility districts and the Columbia Basin Herald.

Moore began by providing a thumbnail of the events which led to his involvement in the founding of Greenpeace, but noted he left the organization because he wanted to base his policies on science and logic and his viewpoints were in opposition to his then-fellow directors.

Today's environmentalists use sensationalism, misinformation and fear, Moore charged.

"By and large, still, the environmental movement is the major obstacle to the realistic achievement of (carbon dioxide) reduction and fossil fuel reduction, because they are opposed to all of the realistic alternatives that actually work," he said.

"They're opposed to nuclear power, to hydroelectric, they're opposed to many wind farms, to intensive forestry which can pull more carbon out of the atmosphere and then use that wood sustainably as a substitute for non-renewable materials like steel and concrete, which put a lot of carbon into the atmosphere during their manufacturing, closing the carbon cycle."

Many members of the environmental movement also oppose genetic modification to generate trees which could pull even more carbon out of the atmosphere and do little to promote geothermal technology.

"(It's) infinitely more important in terms of its potential" than solar power generation, Moore said.

Solar support drains funding from more important initiatives and technologies, he added.

The argument against nuclear weapons has gotten the positive aspects of nuclear energy lost or confused, Moore noted, adding no one has been injured or killed from nuclear power generation since 1986.

No one was injured or killed during a reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, while the effects of the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 were caused due to poor design and a majority of the 60 deaths directly related to the explosion were firefighters battling the fire.

It's safer to work in a nuclear plant in the United States than it is to work in financial services or real estate, Moore said.

"You don't ban the beneficial uses of a technology just because that technology can be used for destruction," he said. "Otherwise we would have never harnessed fire. One flaming arrow into a thatched roof and the whole town burns up. What's a car bomb made with? Diesel oil, fertilizer and a car. Are we going to ban those three things in order to get rid of car bombs?"

Moore said there are five reasons to explore energy sustainability, including as insurance against climate change and its impacts, the need to improve human health, the use of 300 million years worth of fuel in only a few centuries, better use of fossil fuels and the geopolitical aspects of the issue.

"Transportation is the largest challenge for (carbon dioxide) emissions and fossil fuel reduction, because all of our transportation, with almost no exception except for electric trains, is pretty much based on fossil fuels," he said. "But there is light at the end of the tunnel here, too. We have the hybrid vehicle now … and now is going to come the plug-in hybrid vehicle, where if you've got a battery that will actually let you go 40 or 50 miles without a charge. So often you will be able to go out and come back in the day without ever using the engine in the car. In other words, forget about the fossil fuel."

It doesn't make much sense to charge a plug-in hybrid on a coal-fired power plant, but it makes a lot of sense to charge a plug-in hybrid on a hydroelectric dam or a wind farm, Moore said.

"So you're sitting pretty in the Pacific Northwest … and all kinds of places where hydro is the main energy source," he said. "That's making a lot of sense."

A Web site where people can discuss Moore's ideas and offer comments is available at energyfuture.wordpress.com.