Alviston Blog

Even though there has been a lot of talk about energy efficiency and building sustainably, there certainly has not been a paradigm shift as of yet. According to Dr. Steven Chu, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, “We need to start shifting away from fossil fuels now.” One of the reasons, he says, is if the frozen tundra in Siberia begins to thaw, all the microbes in it will become active, living off the vegetative matter. This will produce vast amounts of CO2 and methane, more than what we humans have produced by far.

This is an example of a feedback loop. By burning fossil fuels, we add CO2 to the atmosphere. Since CO2 and methane (like water vapor, aka clouds) have the ability to reflect heat, they act like a big blanket for the earth. We need a certain amount of CO2 to keep the planet warm, but now we have too much. That is what Dr. Chu is afraid of, that heating up the atmosphere will result in things that are now frozen, like the tundra, to thaw and create a big feedback loop.

In fact, Dr. Chu is so certain of this danger that he would rather us build nuclear plants than risk “tundra melt,” which is exactly what the President is now proposing.

While nuclear technology has greatly improved, there are two unfortunate parts of this plan. First, it is incredibly expensive and once again, the taxpayers are being asked to pay for it. Second, if we would start investing in energy efficiency and renewables, we could be giving ourselves the money and we would not need to build any nuclear plants. That is what net-zero homes and distributed power are all about. We have a few of these programs in place already, but funding for all of them is nowhere near what one nuclear plant will cost.

Maybe building energy-efficient homes and wind turbines is not as sexy, but it is a lot cheaper and much safer.

–Mark Alvis