Some may
say that switching all the gasoline tanks in all the gas stations
in America is too big a task, but who uses typewriters anymore? We
have made big switches when we found a better way to do business over
and over in the past. How many blacksmiths do you know? And now we
need to make this switch, too, from fossil fuels to alternative cleaner
burning fuels, so that we can have a safer and cleaner future. With
cleaner fuels, there will be less maintenance. In hybrid buses that
switch back and forth between electric and gas, there's no transmission.
The buses handle better, ride smoother. (Nucleus p.7) That not only
means for mass transit, but for family cars. We need to vote for congressmen
and women who will support clean energy. We also need to vote with
our dollars by buying products that are energy efficient.
Did
you know that not only do sport utility vehicles (SUVs) get abominable
gas mileage, but also they are not regulated for emissions like
cars? They are exempted from clean air rules and are allowed to
get by with the poor standards that trucks are allowed. If you drive
an SUV, you may want to think about it some more. It is quite possible
to drive a car that gets 40 to 50 miles per gallon or better. I
do. I have for the last 10 years. It's nothing new. And it can get
a lot better if we would all vote with our dollars and buy cars
that are energy efficient. We influence the market! California approved
a measure ordering carmakers to offer thousands of electric and
other advanced- technology vehicles beginning in 2003 with a requirement
to surpass 50,000 over the next decade.
Energy
news from the Farm: "Wind developers are installing large turbines
on farms and ranches. By 2020, wind energy could provide farmers
and rural landowners with $1.2 billion in new income and 80,000
new jobs," writes Eric Wesselman in the Union of Concerned Scientists
recent issue of Nucleus. (p. 10) "A wind turbine uses only a quarter
of an acre of land and can earn royalties up to $2000 a year. Iowa
now requires 2% of electricity sales be from renewable resources."
That is a start, but wide-open farmland in the Midwest could provide
a lot more power from the wind. Some larger projects already pay
115 landowners $640,000 each year. They also add $2 million a year
to the tax base." (Nucleus p.10) Since when is energy efficiency
not good business? Did you realize that organic vegetables require
less fertilizer (a product of oil), no pesticides or herbicides,
and fewer trips around the field in a tractor that guzzles oil?
Eat organic!
A farmers'
co-op in Iowa planted 5,500 acres in switchgrass to be burned with
coal in a large power plant. If successful, the project will increase
ten times and plant 50,000 acres producing 200,000 tons of switchgrass
each year supplying 5% of the plant's fuel. Tripling biomass use
could provide $20 billion in new income for farmers and rural communities
and reduce heat-trapping emissions causing global warming by the
same amount as taking 70,000,000 cars off the road. Another farmer
is generating power from cow manure. His digester heats the manure
to 100 degrees F and the methane gas produced powers the turbine
that generates enough electricity for his farm and 50 homes. The
other good thing is that this process eliminates carbon and methane
emissions, which are both greenhouse gases. Farmers also are using
the sun to dry crops, heat buildings, power water pumps, making
farms more economical and efficient. (Nucleus p. 10)
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