Sunday, November 29, 2009

The road is long but is it the right one?

I just saw an advert for this on TV. Natural Gas. Advertised as greener and cleaner and better than wind or solar power. Now while I agree natural gas is WAY better than coal and oil, and safer than nuclear, better than solar or wind? Really? An electric cooker powered by wind energy is WAY better than a gas cooker, but an electric cooker powered by coal is WAY worse.

The route of a "clean energy economy" is certainly a long one, but should we be twisting it with a refocus on another non-renewable resource? Or should we just keep on trucking down the straight and narrow until eventually all non-renewable resources are replaced with renewable ones? Which is better?

My thoughts. We need to get rid of coal power as soon as we can, and though I would love to see all of them replaced with wind farms in the next 5-10 years, it isn't realistic, as non-renewable sources, for now, just generate so much less power. So maybe a slight detour is needed, in tandem with clean sources, but certainly not in preference to. I think what got me is that natural gas should ever be advertised as better than solar ("the sun goes in") or wind ("it's not always windy"), as i'm sorry, but that is just the kind of advertising that leads people astray. There are actually people out there who will believe that...

3 comments:

PleaseRecycle said...

Agreed. I feel the same way about nuclear power. I am still amazed by how little people know/understand about were energy comes from. I had an argument with a friend of mine (a Harvard-educated doctor) about electricity. He thought is was so "clean" and never even considered that power plants burned coal to generate electricity.

I admit that I am confused by all of the options. Renewable sources that have the least detriment to the environment are the best, but which option is that?

Nicola said...

i agree. i think the right road is a little curvy. i am constantly surprised when i realize the circles i travel in are little bubbles and there are people who really don't even believe in global warming! i heard something on NPR that fits me more than i would like...our generation really believes in all of the environmental issues we talk about, but when it comes to actually doing, we only do a percentage of them (or only do them with a percentage of effort).

RGW said...

Misinformation really drives me crazy, i'm shocked what they allow on TV advertising here, in most countries there are regulations. A good example of this is in the UK an advert for wrinkle cream was stopped recently because there was no proof it made you look "years younger". People will believe anything that's on TV sometimes.