1) In the relentless search for fuel to power the world’s economy, the icebreaker ship is the tip of the spear and ours aren’t as good as they should be, as this Sacramento Bee story reports.
An excerpt.
“WASHINGTON – A new cold war is breaking out in the race for Arctic oil, natural gas and minerals, and it involves front-line icebreakers. Russia has seven and the United States has three, if you count one that's laid up in Seattle and not seaworthy.
“The competition is heating up because of global warming and high energy prices. They've made the Arctic coastline and seafloor, despite their harsh climate, one of the most appealing places in the world for energy exploration. Much the same goes for the gold, platinum, copper and other metals found in Arctic regions.
“The increased traffic that Arctic exploitation entails will mean more work for icebreakers, Adm. Thad Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard, told a House of Representatives committee recently. So will retreating ice, which has opened the Northwest Passage (over Canada) and the Northern Sea Route (above Russia) in summer to container ships and oil tankers.
“Not only is Russia's fleet more numerous, it's also nuclear-powered, and its icebreakers are bigger. The biggest, named 50 Years of Victory, can power through more than 9 feet of solid ice without slowing down. Ice thicker than 6.5 feet reduces the strongest U.S. icebreaker, the diesel- powered Polar Sea, to backing up and ramming.”
2) Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, proposes a plan to increase electricity rather than try for energy independence by discovering and refining more oil.
An excerpt.
“What was wrong with energy independence? As the decades progressed, the United States became more and more integrated into a global economy, where goods, information, and oil move unimpeded across national boundaries. Countries around the world produce energy if they can, and buy on the world market what they need beyond their own production. Oil flows toward the highest bidder, just like all other goods. Consequently, talking about “independence” in terms of one product in an otherwise seamless global economy is a contradiction. As national policy, we must protect the U.S. economy from interruptions in the supply of such a critical commodity—whether those interruptions are related to natural or political causes. I believe that the appropriate aim is to strengthen our ability to adjust to such changes—to strengthen our energy resilience.
“We can do that by increasing our reliance on electricity.
Electricity: Energy That Sticks
“Oil moves to the highest bidder. Fleets of tankers carry it across oceans day and night. Natural gas can also move around, but with extra difficulties. On land, it can be transported in pipelines, but to carry it across oceans requires liquefaction and expensive, high-tech ships that can carry this liquid in strong, deeply cooled containers.
“Electricity can be transported only over land. In other words, it is “sticky”: it stays in the continent where it is produced.
“Equally important is the fact that electricity can be produced using multiple sources of energy. Petroleum, yes—but also coal, which is abundant in the United States, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear, and solar. Electricity is a multi-sourced form of energy. If one source suffers a shortage, we can produce electricity from another.
“Because electricity is the stickiest form of energy, and because it is multi-sourced, it will give us the greatest degree of energy resilience. Our nation will be best served if we dedicate ourselves to increasing the amount of our energy that we use in the form of electricity.”
