Editorial: Are Energy Goals Hobbled By Low-Tech Thinking?

We live in a nation successful in space rocketry for decades, where we photograph subjects on cell phones, where customer-service calls are directed instantly to India, and where computer science has reduced some long periods of research to as little as minutes. But has our effort to produce energy been stymied by low-tech thinking that allows opposition groups to stand in the way of solving problems, when solutions are apparent?

Stymieing can result from politics and greed. In almost every case, before projects can be undertaken, planners want to know who will profit and who will get the credit. Obviously profit is important, but an uncontrolled desire for profit is greed. Consider the issue of producing cars with better mileage. It’s not rocket science. We’ve known how for decades. The bugaboo is oil. Oil is money. No one wants to give up oil money to produce a vehicle that will cost less to run. It is technically possible to produce eye-pleasing cars with horsepower reduction, but they’ve been slow coming, costly and, often, ugly to look at.

Energy production is a most critical concern. That drags us kicking and biting right into the matter of fossil fuels. About 50 percent of the electrical power produced in the United States is produced by coal. Opponents say it is dirty energy and that the process contributes to pollution and global warming. Proponents question the degree to which coal contributes to global warming and stress new clean coal technologies.

As for oil, our concerns go to the matter of our dependence on foreign imports, while environmental interests have successfully shut down drilling in promising sites and have all but shut down oil refineries.

Nuclear power is gaining support as an energy alternative. The U.S. seems not to have solved the problem of how to deal with spent fuel rods. Have we spent decades not trying very hard? Nuclear-powered submarines have operated for decades without problems; nuclear power has a good safety record.

We know the solutions for many problems, but we don’t always act to put them in place. Related to energy, it took two to three decades to get full into the program of demanding double hulls on vessels that carry oil and some other liquid cargoes. It wasn’t that we couldn’t build them. We just took our time about it.

The production of ethanol from corn is a success story for some and a headache for others. The process involving corn has been almost overwhelming in recent years. To wit, it overwhelmed our ability to produce enough corn, and it has undercut a food market that depends on corn, thus resulting in price increases across the board. Ethanol, of course, can be produced from various other products, and, as we learned in recent days, General Motors Corporation is planning a pilot ethanol plant in Illinois that will utilize used tires or plant waste. In this nation where huge piles of stored used tires often go up in smoke, this is good news. There are other proven ways to produce energy as well.

Quincy, Ill., is engaged in studying the potential for constructing three hydroelectric facilities at three Mississippi River dams—facilities that could provide electricity for all of the city’s 16,000 homes, officials say. It goes without saying that Quincy will run into opposition, likely as not from people who have no other realistic solutions to energy problems. The potential sites are dams at Locks and Dams 20–22, located at Canton, Mo., Quincy, and Saverton, Mo., respectively. In 1983 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers identified those sites as promising. A Canadian firm has identified some 30 Mississippi River sites that have potential for hydropower facilities.

From a technical standpoint, the Corps is well equipped to identify such sites. As everyone knows, however, there are cost and financial considerations that must also fall into place. An uninterruptible supply of water plays a part, too. LeClaire, Iowa, has been considering such a plan since 1980 at Dam 14, just north of Davenport, but the city administrator says such a project is still not economically viable. It is evident that hydroelectric facilities are not the answer to power needs for every river city. Still, power produced at existing facilities can be sold elsewhere when there is a surplus.

Only experts can answer the questions about potential sites along Mississippi Valley waterways, but there are lots of miles of rivers out there, and, if our memory serves us correctly, not all hydroelectric facilities have to be at dams. In any case, these projects take a long time to plan and a long time to build. Usually the construction boosts the economy in the areas where facilities are sited.

The price one is willing to pay for power is directly related to the need for it. Take the price of gasoline, for instance.

Hopefully, Quincy’s efforts will be successful. There are many benefits to be derived from the Mississippi River and its tributaries. More power production can be one of them. While we should not be careless in our approach, it would be foolish not to look more closely at the opportunities.

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