On April 3, tree trimming on campus knocked out an electrical transformer. Unfortunately for the university, the power failure terminated Internet access for three hours. One tree limb sent the university back to the communication Stone Age, simply because of our reliance on traditional sources of energy.
Congress has been following the same conventional route with its rejection of higher fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. Additionally, the Senate rejected putting America on track with the future of the alternative energy economy. Instead, Congress sided with the fossil fools (fuels) lobby and rejected an attainable 20 percent renewable energy use by 2020.
Congress is most likely going to adopt a politically short-sighted energy policy. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reports that we consume 25 percent of the world’s oil, while we only produce 10 percent of it. Yet given our current administration’s energy policy, there is no escaping energy dependence with fossil fuels.
Other traditional sources like nuclear energy have left us with a legacy of contamination and nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island. Furthermore, our administration’s desire to deposit highly radioactive nuclear waste in Nevada has a local impact: the waste will be transported through Colorado. These energy proposals will be emphasized in the Bush administrations H.R. 4 — Securing America’s Future Energy Act of 2001.
The Bush administration loves to frame H.R. 4 as a national security initiative, but imagine the security implications of being reliant on oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power not only today, but well into our future.
Another concern is the security of nuclear reactors in these plants, which have been allowed to erode through years of neglect. Given the environmental impact of most of the non-renewable energy sources and our increasing reliance on non-renewable energy producing countries, I suggest we reconsider the administration’s proposed energy policy.
There are numerous alternatives to the these energy sources.
Two wind farms in Colorado generate 1 percent of the state’s electricity. There are numerous benefits for the state to increase the production and percentage of use of this alternate energy generation. The Foote Creek Rim Wind farm in Carbon County, Wyoming has already created 18 full-time jobs and $489,000 annually in property taxes for the county.
DU could benefit from renewable energy by installing small photovoltaic solar panels for laptops, outside lights or larger solar panels for campus buildings, reducing the cost during peak energy use.
If we had these alternatives we would never again become hostages to tree branches.
