Energy Independence : FAST FACTS

With Energy Independence being a hot topic right now, and the House voting on CO2 regulations, I am going to start a series of posts that I hope will be interesting and thought provoking. Some of what I will write may focus on Coal but that is because I work at a Coal Mine.

Q: What percent of U.S. energy comes from Coal?
A: 50%

Q: What percent of Utah energy comes from Coal?
A: Over 90%

Q: On average, how many pounds of coal does each American use everyday?
A: 20 pounds

- 1/4 of the worlds coal reserves are found in the United States
- Currently, Oil supplies 40% of the United States total energy
- More than 99% of fuel we use in our cars and trucks is from Oil
- Currently, Hydroelectric power is the leading form of renewable energy
- All renewable energy forms (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, and wind)
currently generate 10% of the United States energy.

(data gathered from the U.S. Department of Energy)

I guess the reason I am going to start these posts is because I see and hear a lot of people jumping for joy because we are 'GOING GREEN'. I am not against green energy but I (for lack of a better word) fear what it will cost, us as Americans, to go green. I also feel that it is unfair for our Federal Government to subsidize the Green Industry while choking out our current energy producers with regulations, fines and oversight. I also wonder how many people think about how a windmill is made; you need steel or other metals which come from a steel plant that needs fossil fuels to make the wind mill with the lowest cost possible.

I really just want all of us to think about the costs that come with going green and decide is it really worth the cost or should the Green Industry and Fossil Fuel Industry try to find a better solution.

One last comment; I was watching a documentary on Global Warming the other night and the were giving figures like, 'the levels of CO2 now are higher than they have ever been in the last 50 million years'; this sounded like a large number 50 million years; I decided to calculate what percent of all earth history is that, well it comes out to be 1% if you use the current age of the earth 4.6 billion years. After realizing that that is not very much, and I am sure they embellished the number a little bit, I thought, we need to see more data than we are and put it into a more realistic time frame.

Well, I hope I get some good comments from this post and the ones to follow.

My new favorite shows this summer

I found most hilarious shows to get addicted to this summer.

Dance Your A** Off




Make it or Break it