Fall 2001 Energy - Introduction

Fall 2001 - Energy

Introduction
by Levi Pulkkinen

Dear reader,

Last spring, while people in the American West watched blackouts roll across parts of California, talk of an “energy crisis” buzzed through the nation’s boardrooms and bars. Around Washington state, large industries, the aluminum industry in particular, stood idle as reservoir levels shrank behind the state’s hydroelectric dams. In Whatcom County, jobs were lost as governments and communities searched for better ways to save energy, money and the economy.

This issue of The Planet is a response to that situation.

After watching what seemed to be the end of an era in the Pacific Northwest unfold, and witnessing the speed at which some were willing to turn back years of progress toward sustainable energy, it became clear that there could be no better topic for this edition. Planet reporters went looking for solutions to complex problems, some which seem to have been built into America’s energy economy from its inception.

To do so correctly, we looked beyond the kind of power that comes through a transmission line, to forces as complex as the Bonneville Power Administration and as simple as a guy on a bike. In searching for solutions, we found men and women who have committed themselves to a lifestyle in balance with their environment, and we found that they have not suffered.

We found a man who gave up a career in sales and an SUV for a bicycle and place in the community. We found another who has never paid a utility bill and still takes hot showers. We found a county executive who bounces around his office, pointing to light fixtures emptied to save a few watts, and a woman who traveled to the farthest corner of Alaska to see an imperiled wild place.

But not all we found was so pleasant or hopeful. We found an aluminum smelter, which employed more than 900 people, empty and dead, and we found a company pushing to build a power plant that would pump up to 144 tons of nitrogen oxides into Canada’s second most polluted airshed. We found an economic system built upon hidden costs and hidden profits, and we found that it is ours.

We found a university administration that believes postage stamp-size stickers and committees are an adequate solution to an energy problem projected to cost it $1 million.

There is a crisis, and it is larger than the one brought to a head by a number of poor decisions and a dry winter. America is facing a crisis of consumption, and, though fuel cells and windmills may mitigate it, it has one solution: conservation.

-LP

Fall 2001 - Energy

Introduction by Levi Pulkkinen

Introduction
by Levi Pulkkinen