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Dave Zweifel's Plain Talk: Past time to change our energy ways

Dave Zweifel  —  8/20/2008 8:07 am

There's a new exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry this summer called the "Smart Home."

It's an actual 2,200-square-foot home designed by the renowned "green" architect Michelle Kaufmann, utilizing recycled materials in nearly every part of the building, including the furniture. Plus, it's practically energy neutral.

Kaufmann's homes are all prefabricated and the modules are put together on a foundation on the owner's property in usually two or three days. There are unbreakable solar panels on the roof; a modern-day cistern (remember those?) captures rain water and recycles it through the toilets; the heat, lighting and blinds are all automatically controlled; and there are periods during the day when the home is actually returning electricity to the power grid.

The guides wouldn't tell us how much the place costs, except to admit "a lot," but it's an example of what the future can bring if we put our minds to it.

That's why it's so frustrating to watch John McCain pander to the polls that show more than 60 percent of Americans think we ought to start plunging more oil wells into our ocean shores. McCain, who was adamantly opposed to offshore drilling only a few years ago, now thinks it's a good idea. Even Barack Obama is suddenly open to "some" offshore drilling if there are adequate safeguards.

What both these candidates ought to be doing is disabusing the public of the notion that somehow offshore drilling or driving big holes through the ice in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is going to bring down the price of gasoline. It won't even come close.

George Bush's own Department of Energy report last year said it would take two decades for drilling in restricted areas to have a noticeable effect on domestic production and even at that the impact on fuel costs would be insignificant because oil prices are determined on the international market.

We've known for decades that the day would come when oil and natural gas would start to run out. They are both non-renewable energy sources, after all. But we ignored that information. Our car companies thumbed their noses at better gas mileage. We built more and wider highways to make it easier to burn that gas. We turned up our noses at mass transit. We laughed at those who experimented with solar and wind power.

So here we are now -- and a majority of Americans still think the answers lie in sinking more oil wells into the floors of our oceans and somehow magically returning to the days of $2-a-gallon gas. And no one even stops to consider the costs to our shorelines when one of those wells springs a leak, something that happens all too often at our existing offshore sites.

The candidates who want to lead this country for the next four years ought to be the leaders on this issue. They both know -- McCain, in particular -- that anyone who claims that offshore drilling will ease our petroleum problems is, if not a liar, a charlatan. The time for pandering is over.

Rather, we need the candidates to lead, to set national goals much like John F. Kennedy did when he pledged to put a man on the moon before the end of the '60s. We can all come together to achieve those goals by encouraging concepts like Smart Homes, implementing housing codes that require better energy use in buildings, and developing alternatives to oil and gas.

Our generations have had a ball burning fossil fuels, but the time has come to get serious about changing our ways.

Our grandkids will never forgive us if we don't -- and well they shouldn't.

Dave Zweifel is editor emeritus of The Capital Times.

Dave Zweifel  —  8/20/2008 8:07 am