There are lots of fine citizens in this great country of ours – persons with awareness, intelligence and values which reflect a high moral purpose. We can call these persons "wise" as a way to summerize their traits. Unfortunately, however, very few of these citizens are in responsible positions for making our nation’s vital decisions. Wrong-headed actions come out of our Congress and our upper levels of bureaucracy daily. But the greatest failure in intelligent, aware, and ethically responsible decision-making comes from our current executive branch. One of the great lapses on the part of our leaders is in their energy policy.

The common use of fossil fuels for producing power should have become obsolete years ago were it not for the continuing taxpayer subsidy of obsolescence. Such obsolescence has been carefully nurtured since Reagan, and now we are left with terrorists on our doorstep, suspension of some Constitutional Rights, and an additional huge tax burden (which will fall mostly on the shoulders of the middle class) to a marked degree because of our dependence on Middle East oil.

If the terrorist atrocity of 9-11 has any kind of message to our administration in terms of a means of defense, it should have given a knockout punch to Star Wars. (However, if you can see through the Star Wars absurdity, it is just a lot more profits at the expense of folks like us for those large corporations working on it). The so-called "logic" for Star Wars is that a hostile country could launch a missile at us without warning and such missile would be intercepted before it could do any harm.. So what would you call those hijacked airlines loaded with aviation fuel if they weren’t, effectively, extremely damaging missiles? Even if we had a functional defense system in the Star Wars venue, it would not have prevented the horror of 9-11. [On the other hand if the current powers in the administration had listened to some of our intelligence agents who were privy to the knowledge of some terrorist evil afoot, we might have headed this calamity off.]

Living with the threat of terrorism from now on makes large nuclear and coal-fired power plants very vulnerable. (The impact of the destruction of nuclear plant might kill millions from the nuclear fallout). The wave of the future in terms of energy production is through small generating plants, even as small as one to suit a single dwelling (see Dunn, "Micropower: the Next Electrical Era"). Because of our new awareness of the threat of terrorism, it would make much sense to move towards micropower sooner rather than later since this would phase out large centralized power generating plants.

If we build a another pipeline to carry oil in Alaska, then this adds immeasurably to the vulnerability. In 1982 the Pentagon commissioned a study the final report of which was titled, "Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security." Our top decision makers ever since have ignored the gist of the study which was that a handful of people could shut down the oil and gas suppliers to the eastern US and that another small group could cut power to any major city.

"If the Refuge held economically recoverable oil (unlikely and a decade away according to the official data) then delivering that oil by its only route, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) would undercut the anti-terrorist purpose of the pending Defense Authorization Bill. It would make TAPS the fattest energy-terrorist target in the country.

"TAPS is ... frighteningly insecure. It’s mostly above ground, accessible to attackers, and often unrepairable in winter.... The Army, US General Accounting Office, and Senate judiciary Committee found TAPS indefensible." (Lovins)

There are market barriers to the conversion from the use of fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy. According to Lovens over the decades the accumulated subsidies to fossil fuels has become at least $120 billion a year. ( Is the cost of the "necessity" of maintaining a strong military presence in the Middle East factored into this?). Huge and powerful corporations which dictate energy policy have their capital tied up in fossil fuels and are reluctant to budge off of their positions.

"Most monopoly utilities, perceiving downsized systems as a threat to their core business of generating and distributing power, employ tariffs and standards to block their use." (Dunn) The subsidies should instead go to the development of alternative fuels. This would make a more level playing field for sustainable energy development.

Sustainable energy technology is already economically competitive, and if you compare the environmental costs, wind power easily outstrips coal or oil as a source. Continuing development towards a sustainable energy base would increase the number of jobs markedly. A policy for the conservation of energy could solve a lot of energy problems in a hurry such as the painless cutting back of energy waste, eg., the average home in the US could have some basic insulation installed and cut their fuel bills in half. (In Florida I have seen athletic fields at night with banks of powerful lights left on with no one using the facilities and I wonder how many of our beloved mountains have to be leveled for such extravagance and waste.) Raising the average mileage of passengers cars 2.7 mile/gal would completely eliminate our need for Mideast oil.(Lovins). Unfortunately, the one-two punch political punch of big auto and big oil and their short term views for immediate profits has made the logical solution of raising the mpg standard thus far impossible to expedite.

The technology is there and I don’t mean in high tech weaponry, but in the continuing development of sustainable energy sources. This direction for our government to go would be a much greater defense against terrorist damage than what is being done now.

According to Amory Lovins,"A system is secure not because it is American is big, but because it’s designed to make large-scale failure impossible and local failure benign."

Walker Machinery in Crab Orchard has a sign on the front of the building that says "Coal – it turns on the lights" How about sporting some bumpers stickers that say "Wind – it turns on the lights?"

Refs. Seth Dunn. Micropower: The Next Electrical Era. WorldWatch Institute.

Amory Lovins. "The 800-Mile Long Chapstick." Progressive Populist, Jan 1-15, 2002.