F

irst is geothermal energy from the Earth'€™s molten core and decaying radioactive minerals in the Earth'€™s crust. This energy moves continents, powers volcanoes and its heat migrates toward the crust, warming the lithosphere and the deep oceans. It can be harvested successfully in favorable locations, and radioactive minerals can be extracted to provide large amounts of reliable heat for power generation.

Second is energy stored in combustible hydrocarbon minerals such as coal, oil, gas, tar sands and oil shale. These all store solar and geothermal energy collected eons ago and they are the primary energy sources supporting modern industrial societies and the vast populations dependent on them.

Third are radiation and gravitational energies from the Sun and Moon that are captured by the biosphere as heat, winds, tides, rain, rivers and in biomass such as forests, crops and animals. These are the natural '€œgreen'€ energies that support all processes of life and still support a peasant existence for some peoples.

Green activists believe that we can and should run modern societies exclusively on green energies, and they have embarked on a war on hydrocarbons. They need to be told that their green energy favorites are just stealing from the biosphere '€“ they are not as green as they claim.

The most obvious example is the ethanol industry, which takes food crops like corn, sugar and palm oil and uses a lot of hydrocarbon energy to convert them to ethanol alcohol, which will burn in internal combustion engines, but has less energy density than gasoline. This process is replacing natural grasslands and forests with artificial monocultures.

The latest suggestion along these lines is to power the '€œwanna-be-green'€ US Pacific Fleet using Queensland food crops. Feeding ethanol to the engines of the US navy would consume far more food than was used feeding hay and grain to the thousands of horses used to move our artillery and light horse brigades in the Great War.

Biomass is a fancy name for plant material and vegetable trash, which, if maintained in/on the soil, will provide the fertility for the next crop. To burn it reduces the humus that maintains fertile soil.

Most plants will not grow without energy from the sun. Solar arrays steal energy directly from the biosphere. Some incoming solar energy is reflected to space by the panels, some is converted to waste heat on the panels and some is converted to electricity - much of which ends up as waste heat.

Hydropower is one of the few green energy sources that is '€œgrid ready'€ and can supply economical reliable energy. So, naturally, many greens are opposed to it. However, in most places there is competition for fresh water for domestic uses, irrigation, industry and environmental flow. Hydropower is just one more competitor for this valuable green resource.

Finally, those who have swallowed the carbon dioxide scare should be told that nuclear energy is the most reliable and least damaging '€œlow carbon'€ option.

Viv Forbes
Queensland, Australia