We are experiencing right now what unbridled greed can do
to a hardworking country. The effects of Wall Street's
fraud are becoming very painful for the working stiff, who
have no choice but to entrust the results of their life's
toils to our country's banks. These same banks have become
the most profitable sector of the US economy.
Right now, these banks have stopped extending credit to
large and small enterprises, to customers who have been
paying dearly for borrowing working capital for decades.
The effects will be felt throughout the US economy and will
lead to hardships for millions of bank customers, will
accelerate an ongoing recession, and may force our country
into a depression.
An equally profitable economic sector of the US economy,
the oil and energy industry, is following policies that may
drive our country into an even more disastrous situation
that will be more difficult to correct, and will deadlock
our economy not for years but for decades, if not corrected
in time.
Indigenous and foreign petroleum reserves are being
depleted across the world and will not last much longer
than 50 years. Continuing petroleum combustion will
increase atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by
another 25%. Increasing carbon dioxide emissions from coal
and natural gas combustion will increase atmospheric
concentrations even higher than 600 ppm before 2050. A
concentration of 600 ppm is the absolute maximum that can
be endured by our planet and its inhabitants.
The most immediate and economically most damaging
consequences of our continuing profligate use of petroleum
products will be the steady increase of gasoline and diesel
fuel prices at the pump. These price increases will
eventually have effects similar to the presently developing
credit crunch.
US Congress has found the will to legislate measures that
hopefully have a chance of easing credit and of allowing
our economy to resume its normal activities, eventually.
There are is no similar oversight for assuring that the US
oil industry is developing actionable plans for replacing
petroleum with renewable petroleum substitutes, which do
not emit greenhouse gases. US coal and natural gas
industries have not found it necessary to prepare for a
future, in which all fossil fuel combustion must be
outlawed. These same industries are still not held liable
for the irreversible ecological damages they inflict on our
Earth.
Any person with rational abilities and a basic
understanding of a few scientific facts must conclude that
the world's economies will run into an abyss, if we cannot
change our ways of using energy. We especially cannot
tolerate the continuing increases of atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide, which are leading
irreversibly to global overheating and destructive climate
changes.
On the other hand, we cannot dare letting scarce petroleum
make our transportation systems unaffordable for the
average consumer, we cannot suffer the consequences of a
sudden stop of all our transportation systems at the
instance we run out of petroleum, and our Armed Forces
cannot defend our country without plentiful fuels.
If the supply of gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuels for
automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes ever
breaks down, we will experience a crisis that will be far
more severe and much more damaging than the 2008 financial
crisis.
Because we cannot let these ruinous events happen, we must
demand from US Congress and our administrations that they
begin to conceive plans and install controls that will make
a future breakdown of the energy system impossible.
Such controls must assure that the energy industry will
convert its energy supplies during the coming couple of
decades from fossil fuel based energy forms to renewable
energies. These new energy supplies must also assure that
we can continue to use our huge, irreplaceable investments
into our transportation infrastructures consisting of
automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, airplanes, airports,
automotive manufacturing plants, and maintenance facilities.
Replacing major portions of our existing transportation
system would consume trillions upon trillions of dollars.
Instead, we must preserve precious capital for the most
important future investments; the construction of novel
energy conversion plants. We must invest in building a
sufficient number of energy plants that produce plenty of
petroleum substitutes and are able of replacing all fossil
fuels.
We must invest in factories that build equipment for
converting sun energy, wind power, marine power, and
geothermal power into electricity. Most importantly we
must install facilities that can convert plentiful and
inexhaustible sun energy into biomass.
We know that we can convert sunlight into diesel fuel. Now
we must learn very fast how to convert biomass into
petroleum substitutes. Preliminary evaluations show that
the US can replace its entire, annual petroleum consumption
by growing biomass on an area of less than 10,000 square
miles. The lower 48 states of the US have an area of close
to 3 million square miles. A small fraction, well below
one percent, is sufficient to provide the entire US with
emission free, affordable, and secure petroleum
substitutes. These substitutes can be converted in
existing oil refineries into the fuels we need; gasoline,
diesel fuel, and jet fuels.
We must force the US energy industry to use its exorbitant
profits for developing new energy sources and for making
the US independent of foreign imports.
A future energy crisis will be much more severe than any
past financial crises. It will take decades to fix the
looming scarcity of transportation fuels. The US and the
world must prevent a worldwide energy crisis that will
threaten all countries with economic collapse.
----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Hemsath recently published the book: CLIMATE CHANGE -
GOLD RUSH OR DISASTER? For 50 years he has worked as
scientist, process engineer, Corporate Vice President of
R&D, Company President, CEO, and Inventor. He holds more
than 60 US Patents.
He is working on a new book: "THE SOLUTION FOR ENDING
GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE". Go to
http://www.thermalexpert.com
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