To the editor:
The exhaustion and closure of the Sable Island natural gas fields in Nova Scotia should be a wake-up call to Mainers about the future of cheap energy. It only took 20 years to snuff out the dream of converting Maine’s electrical power grid and home heating to clean-burning natural gas. Now, to continue that conversion, Mainers face snags in piping fracked gas from Texas or Pennsylvania, which may soon meet a similar fate.
Americans have been spoiled by the the luxury of cheap energy, including gasoline. Where we pay somewhat under $3 a gallon, most of Europe and the rest of the world pays over $6. Imagine how our tourist industry would suffer with the doubling of gasoline prices.
That is why I find it unproductive when some argue against the addition of transmission lines or pipelines that could soften the blow of future energy shortages. Whether we like it or not, either from an environmental standpoint or NIMBY, in the future we will pray for and demand energy from wherever and however we can get it.
Renewables, which include both hydro and wood, only account for 11% of our current energy needs. We should be full speed ahead with wind and solar, although it is doubtful that will take the place of fossil fuel in our lifetime. And why are we so anxious to tear down rather than build dams for hydropower?
As for substituting ethanol, electric, or hydrogen fuel for transportation, we must remember that these are not substitutes for fossil fuels, but alternate ways of delivering power, and even then at relatively low efficiencies.
If we are headed to reverting to the preindustrial era, we can take some steps to soften the blow. The back-to-the-land movement was not wrong, just a bit premature. It faced an uphill battle against cheap food from elsewhere and the rising costs of all other goods and services. We may yet return to having a flock of chickens, canning our vegetables, and cutting our own firewood. Some of us might even enjoy it.
Arthur Mayers
Newcastle
