by Peter A. Jeschke
"To generate clean, nonpolluting energy from fossil fuels, we
just have to capture all of the wastes from energy production and then
store that waste back underground where fossil fuels come from in the
first place. Intuitively, it seems a simple cycle, using the same
equipment and facilities which produce, transport, refine and combust
fossil fuels, to capture and return the waste from their combustion safely
back into the earth. To date, the energy industries, which produce and
refine fossil fuels and generate power, have been taught to be fairly
conscientious about capturing the most noxious waste fluids and gases and
keeping them out of the environment. But these industries still spew
billions of tons of other waste gases into the atmosphere every year, and
that has got to stop. When it does stop, and it will, we will be
generating clean energy."
"However, no matter how clean we make this energy, it still
won't be green energy because it is produced from fossil fuels.
Green power generated from renewable resources like the sun and the
wind are wonderful concepts which must be pursued and implemented on a
global scale as quickly as possible, but that will take decades, and
green power is not problem-free. All that new equipment, like solar
panels and giant wind mills, must be manufactured and installed, which
will result in a demand for new sources of raw materials and the creation
of more waste from fuel combustion in the manufacturing processes. Also,
wind farms can be quite unsightly and can be especially hard on the avian
population, and it's not always windy and sunny. The reality is that
fossil fuels will be with us for a very long time, and just because they
are called fossil fuels doesn't mean they're obsolete, or that energy
can't be produced from them efficiently and cleanly. Through technological
advancement, the energy industry has shown there to be an abundance of
fossil energy resources still to be found and produced from the earth, and
abundant ways to be more efficient. Although they are not renewable
resources, for the next several decades, while we become more efficient
with them and search for an alternate source of cheap energy, fossil fuels
will be sustainable resources."
"What is not sustainable is the rate at which we humans, especially our
energy and power industries, are emitting waste gases into the atmosphere.
Orders of magnitude more waste than we've already produced will be
generated by our children and the world's developing economies in the
coming decades. What we need right now are immediate, practical solutions
to the problems of capture and storage of waste gases from energy
production so that we can continue to enjoy cheap energy, the mainstay of
a successful world economy, without destroying the atmosphere."
– Peter A. Jeschke, Geophysicist
lifted from:
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/cleanhydrocarbons.html