Not to be confused with energy conservation.

The question has arisen on how to replace oil many times, but think of all the hubris involved in these so-called 'harmless' or 'green' energy sources. It's yet another piece of arrogance where yet another set of humans beings thinks they can actually control the planet. Well, they didn't study physics, did they?

Namely, there's the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy may neither be created nor destroyed, only moved around and changed. When we burn, well, anything, energy is not being created, it is simply being changed from the chemical bonds in the material into light and heat. So, what happens when energy is moved through certain systems in the generation of power?

Well, in the case of fossil fuels or nuclear power, the system of the planet isn't compromised. The energy was always there and has been there since it was originally put there either by the forces that formed the planet or by the sun. It simply been stored, awaiting use. Use alters the chemical and/or atomic make-up of the material, though nothing subsists off of coal or uranium, so no loss there. The side effects of drawing the majority of our power from these systems comes from the particulate waste (ash), which we have become very good at controlling and the gaseous waste (CO and CO2, mostly), which have been getting released into the atmosphere by unchecked forest fires for at long as trees have been around.

What about hydro-electric power? Well, this is probably the easiest hippie-friendly power source to control...and also the least hippie-friendly hippie-friendly power source. A lake is formed upstream from the dam, flooding the area the lake forms in (making hippies mad) and the water downstream is slowed as the energy that was used to keep the lake level up is moved into the turbine as electrical energy.

Then there's wind power. So far, so good, right? Nothing but a few dead birds and bats. Well, what happens if this becomes a primary power source. Remember, if you use an electric lift to raise a 2-ton block of steel, you must remove enough energy from the wind system to raise that 2-ton block, plus the energy lost in imperfect systems. Now think about how many computers, air conditioners, and other electric devices we have on in this country. How much wind would we have to remove from the system to put a dent in that power? Don't tell me that's not going to adversely affect weather.

Now let's look at the green lobby's favorite toy, solar power. What's their problem with greenhouse gasses? Why, it's because greenhouse gasses absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, thereby heating up the planet and (eventually and presumably) killing us all. So, what do solar cells do? Why, their entire purpose is to, well, absorb and store solar energy, adding more of that energy to our planet's system than would normally be collected, of course. But there's some kind of difference...yeah.

Now, I'm not against any of these types of power consumption, really, but the green lobby really needs to rethink its argument before more people start taking it to its logical conclusion.