Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

Energy solution necessary to maintain power projection

With the elections coming up and the economy, as well as Iraq and the environment, on everyone's mind I thought it would be a good idea to touch upon something that is intrinsic to all of those things. It hasn't taken the spotlight from those subjects, but is inherently as important as all of them. It's a "crisis" that is more fundamental to human existence than the other problems we face: a crisis of power.

For the first time in human history all of our systems are coming to a clashing point. Our economic systems are shifting and showing how primitive they really are. Our governmental systems are facing scrutiny worldwide. Our ideological systems are challenging one another globally and, in many cases, starting wars. All of these problems are in part experienced because of our progress as a species manifesting itself in globalization. The problem of energy, however, is certainly a daunting one. We can easily see now that our dependence on fossil fuel technology is bringing to head a calamity that will cause us to seriously rethink our existence on this planet. We all know that these resources are beginning to run out. With America's insatiable appetite for oil, we're going to face an increasing number problems as it becomes more and more expensive to retrieve such resources. This problem is compounded by the fact that demand will continue to increase and supply will only continue to decrease. What is going to be a crippling event worldwide is not when we run out, but well before that, when the disparity between supply and demand reaches a particular gap and when the retrieval of oil becomes to expensive to accomplish. If no other sources of energy are in place and sustainable, this tipping point could trigger multiple conflicts across the globe in an effort to secure as much of the resource as possible. Remember, our military might depends completely on oil, so as reserves run low, it will only be a matter of time before action must be taken in order to secure dominance before a transition of energy resources can be made. If we don't have the adequate resources to force project our unbelievably consumptive military, then we can only support our borders-at best.

With the world turning to an understanding that we need more evolved energy sources (rather than burning things like our ancestors did) many new avenues have opened up and many new understandings have come to light. One interesting project has been launched by the Department of Defense to research the feasibility of space-based power. The plan with this idea is to put a network of satellites into orbit collecting pure sunlight, not filtered nor dispersed by the Earth's atmosphere, and then transmit it wirelessly down to earth. The implications of such a power source are obvious. For the military, force projection could be ensured on levels that oil couldn't even provide. It would give us the ability to transmit massive amounts of power into a field of operations without the need of a sensitive convoy. For the rest of the world and the human race, this could be a wonderful opportunity; ensuring that nearly endless amounts of power could stream down from these massive satellite arrays satisfying our increasing desire for energy.

Terrestrial based solar generation is not out of the question either. Establishing a solar field in the uninhabited western territory of the U.S. could supply a large amount of power, through direct current to extended parts of the nation, by 2050. Combining that with hydroelectric, wind, geothermal (where possible) and the burgeoning field of fusion could completely replace our dependence on fuels that will only continue to run out.

One other potential source of energy that is constantly overlooked is the rotation of the Earth itself. This planet puts out more energy than it takes in and its rotation generates and unimaginably large and constantly pervasive field of electromagnetic energy around it. Though never fully developed during the early 1900s, the idea is still plausible today. Creating a global system of antennae to harness this natural field of energy and then wirelessly transmit it to homes and businesses across the world would indeed solve the energy crisis. The lack of motivation, however, lies in the fact that it isn't profitable. You can't put a price tag on energy naturally taken out of the atmosphere. Although it would solve the problem and open up a new day in human history, the quest for profit is more powerful.

This itself is the problem we face with oil. We continue to use it for economic reasons, for reasons of dominance, and for man's ego. It is the opinion of this author that no economy, which are systems based off of imaginary sets of values existing only in the mind, is worth the collective soul and existence of humanity. Science is meant for the betterment of humanity, not to profit from it or establish dominance over others. As with all of my articles, the little moral of the story is that it is high time to rethink our existence and the way in which we operate. The problems we face, including the energy problem, are factors of our own actions, misled ideologies, and egotistical pursuits. The future could be wonderfully bright and energy could be plentiful, but it is our choice to make it so.