James Howard Kunstler Takes on Stephen Colbert
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 05. 3.08
Appearing on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report to promote his latest book, "World Made by Hand," James H. Kunstler outlined his vision for the future of suburbia and peak oil, criticizing our approach to energy consumption and systems management. He went on to dismiss renewable energy technologies as mere stopgaps, arguing that only a fundamental redress in our way of life could save us now -- a possibility he considers unlikely. A gloomy prognostication by most estimates (as befits most of Kunstler's past work), but, nonetheless, a substantive, worthwhile discussion of our current predicament by an influential writer.
this book is garbage. renewable energy a stopgap?? there is enough wind power in Nevada ALONE to power all of North America. There's enough solar resource available in Nevada ALONE, OR the California desert, OR in fact any 25x25 mile or cumulative 625 square miles across the globe to power our ENTIRE energy needs. New photovoltaic manufacturing plants are being financed every month. This excludes hydroelectric - which the Chinese are building the largest hydroelectric plant in the world. Wave, tidal, and ocean current power are being developed. Advances in battery chemistry will allow them to be economical in 2-3 years for use in all-electric vehicles including class 9 trucks. More power to this guy making a buck off the hype, though. Hopefully he'll take his profits and invest in renewable energy?? Naysayers be damned!
He does bring up a good question. I don't know the math on this one, but how big would a battery have to be to drive a cargo ship across the Pacific from China to America. I think he has an interesting point. We burn tens of thousands of years worth of oil each day. Can alternative energy catch up?
Renewable energy will be able to replace oil. You just have to think about a system that is as complex as the one we already have. For portable energy, we won't be:
1: finding fossil fuels
2: removing them from the ground
3: purifying them
4: transporting them
5: using them
Instead, we will be:
1: Harvesting renewable energy (On site)
2: Converting it to a portable format (Where we need it)
3: Using it
Renewable energy can be transfered into portable forms other than batteries; hydrogen, for example. Have we figured it all out quite yet, no, but we will.
While I do agree with the others here, in that alternative energy will be able to replace the whole fossil-fuel stuff, I feel people are missing the real point Mr. Kunstler is trying to make. He's advocating a change of lifestyle; instead of using any kind of energy to power a certain appliance, why use that appliance at all, is kind of the jist. I agree with him when it comes to his viewpoint of how people are trying to find as many ways as possible to preserve our current modus vivendi. But what if we changed our way of living so dramatically, so that we would hardly need any energy at all? It's a very interesting thought and it's not impossible to realize.