The ill effects of the oil-spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico find a lot of clean-energy mantras bubbling to the surface. “Clean energy," though, as I understand it, refers not to the potentially disastrous risks associated with the procurement of an energy source but rather to the by-products of combustion (as applicable) of that energy source. There is some mention of “clean energy” having to do with sustainability for future generations, but obviously “clean” and “sustainability” are not on the same continuum, so this added definition carries less conceptual heft for the topic.
We all dislike debates with those near and dear to us when they digress from the topic at hand, or, worse, distort it. We have all had a “discussion” that strayed from facts and particulars we deemed germane to the issue(s). More often than not, this phenomenon undermines communication and understanding rather than facilitating or enhancing it.
Sadly, the same may be true for clean energy insofar as its more audible advocates of late have found a platform on an off-shore drilling catastrophe whose particulars are not, in fact, inherently related to the fact that oil is not clean energy. Oil is not a clean-energy source because it produces certain gases upon combustion, not because BP made errors that found it leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.
As with most things, there is a time and a place. My guess is that the Gulf Oil crisis provides neither the time nor the place to assert the long-term desirability of clean energy. If, on the other hand, it does--as some would presently insist--then what will come of people’s convictions when the last of the oil has been cleaned up?
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