The Roanoke Slant

A Virginia Tech. Energy Assessment Challenge

Our state and national leaders have launched massive changes to our national and personal energy systems based on the UN-IPCC group’s hypothesis that: man-made CO2 is causing major global warming that is resulting in catastrophic climate change that will result in the end of life on earth as we know it!

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – also called the UN’s climate panel – was set up in 1988 by the UN’s Environment Programme. They have issued numerous reports documenting the hypothesis of CO2 caused global warming that have become the basis for Mr. Gore’s Inconvenient Truth Program and numerous other supporting and contrarian activities, reports, conferences and legislation.

The changes are currently being implemented by stopping construction of and support for additional current technology power plants (coal, oil, gas, hydro, nuclear), imposition of massive taxes on energy (directly and through cap-and-trade), limiting supply and diversion of food growing resources to fuels.

As a substitute energy system our leaders are implementing alternative energy systems that have never been scaled-up to this level and that will cost consumers many times more than current energy. It is not clear how or when these profound changes will support the needs of our current population nor the two-plus million people we add to our population every year (equivalent to two cities the size of Boston).
As a leading institution of scientific and business knowledge and analysis, it is fitting and proper that the VT faculty and staff and students should analyze these massive energy changes, the alternative energy substitutions, the impacts to standards of living and the UN-IPCC hypothesis that is driving these decisions. It is appropriate to conduct a series of ongoing seminars of open and inclusive public dialogue to be presented by the major academic departments with participation by all students, faculty and the public.

Engineering: Comparisons between current technology energy systems and current state of the art alternative energy systems including the parameters of cost per kilowatt, energy storage and peak-power supply and demand and distribution. How many wind mills equal one current power plant? How many square miles of solar panels equal one current power plant? How to plan for those time periods when the sun doesn’t shine and-or the wind doesn’t blow?

Economics: Impacts on people’s standard of living caused by the increases in energy, food, and transportation costs and the rationing of energy and the resulting major increases in off-shore and out-sourcing of jobs to China and other countries that are not changing or limiting their energy systems.

Agriculture: Impacts of CO2 regulation and alternative energy on the cost of producing fertilizer, food, amount of tillable acreage to be converted from production of food to ethanol, the impacts to agriculture exports and the impact of the bovine-methane tax.

Civil Engineering: Quantify impacts of CO2 regulation and increased costs to produce concrete and other building materials and increased cost of construction and maintenance and infrastructure.

Political Science: Outline the American political, social, legal and life-style changes that are required to implement the UN-IPCC goals of major reductions in the per capita consumption of energy by means of major increased costs and rationing of energy similar to the processes used during WW2.

Environmental: Analysis of the UN-IPCC hypothesis upon which these self-imposed actions are being taken. Inclusion of contrarian views and conflicting historical and current data. Comparison of man-made CO2 to all forms of CO2 generation. The magnitude of the temperature reductions that are anticipated to result from a 50 percent reduction in US CO2

The Bottom Line: These are the most massive changes to our society and infrastructure since the Industrial Revolution and all VT students and faculty and the public should be fully informed and participate in the dialogue about the causes and effects of these self-imposed massive changes, the basis upon which they are being made and the reasonable and prudent actions that should be undertaken.

Ref: http://www.roanokeslant.org/GlobalWarmingThoughts/