Alternative Energy, Not Such a New Concept

by Tony Shelton, President Shelton & Caudle Communication Training & Crisis Counsel

Coal as the latest in alternative energy?

It was in the Middle Ages, when coal arrived just as the last trees in Europe were being chopped down for heat and cooking fires. More than 400 years later, Alexander Graham Bell was brewing up ethanol from corn as an alternative to coal and oil, which he thought were in short supply.

In fact, one reason petroleum had come into widespread use was that those mobile sources of whale oil were running low, too.

Now President Obama says he wants to eliminate our current imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 years. How to do that: put a million plug-in electric hybrids on the road by 2015, ensure that 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and lots and lots of weatherizing of homes and public buildings. Wind and water power, nuclear, gasoline-electric hybrids and brand new forms of energy will all be needed to end our "addiction" to petroleum.

Ethanol from corn, which seemed like such a good idea to Bell and to many in the U.S. just a few years ago, is now falling out of favor. Questions have arisen about a possible impact on food prices and the real cost to the environment from all the energy and petroleum products used in fertilizer and the farm equipment needed to cultivate and harvest the corn, then haul it to the processing facility.

Several U.S. companies are looking more seriously at other sources of cellulosic ethanol, which can be derived from a variety of not only food stocks, but many plant materials. For instance, Brazil has had an ethanol fuel program since the 1970s. Where the U.S. focused on corn as the feedstock, Brazil used sugar cane. These days in Brazil, there are no cars that run exclusively on gasoline. Of course, this effort relied heavily on government subsidies, just as has the industry that produced ethanol from corn.

The recent slide in oil prices has caused many in this country to think less about alternative energy. But a time when energy is relatively cheap is just the time to invest in all the alternatives we can think of. Almost everyone we know in the energy sector is busy doing just that.

Conservation alone won't get us where we need to be, and sooner or later, oil prices will have to go back up. One more big Middle East crisis could all but ensure that. Now is definitely the time. Besides, going back to the Middle Ages doesn't seem that appealing, and the whales would appreciate it if we would keep looking elsewhere, thank you.