The History Channel -- Sketchy Coverage of Energy

The History Channel ran a very interesting show on energy last night, featuring a couple of college professors who took the audience through everything from the basic concept of Conservation of Energy, through to applications in astrophysics; at a certain level, it was really very well done.

I noticed, however, that while the show mentioned the fact that the Earth receives 8.2 million quads (quadrillion BTUs of energy) each year – many thousands of times the consumption of even the most energy-hungry population imaginable, it declined to discuss the practical consequences of this. Instead, in a Q&A session about the future of renewable energy, one of the professors took on an (admittedly interesting) question about harvesting the energy of neutrinos. He pointed out that we struggle even to detect the little buggers; we’re certainly a long way off from even thinking about how to capture and use their energy.

The show went on to talk briefly about the practicality of renewables, but in a very unfavorable – and, I think unfair -- light. For example, the show incorrectly pointed out that geothermal is unworkable, because this form of energy is available primarily at the interface points between tectonics plates. This is simply false. "Are you proposing to put caps on geysers? How practical is that?" the voice-over asked, displaying a shot of Old Faithful. Holy cow.  I hope Paul Thomsen of Ormat, whom I interviewed for my book’s chapter on geothermal wasn’t watching; he would have had a coronary.

As I freely admit, we live in a world of Tough Realities with respect to renewable energy.  But my point here is that we have a huge gap in understanding of the subject, and we don’t seem to be trying too hard to plug it. It’s disappointing, to say the least.

Craig Shields, editor of 2GreenEnergy.com and author, Renewable Energy -- Facts and Fantasties (2010).