MORE DILEMMAS

So, you worry about renewable energy, right? You know that petroleum is a dirty substance that's running out anyway and realize that we need something new to burn. Now, what if somebody came up with a great new technology for cheap, clean and renewable energy? You'd be all over it, feeling all green and planet-friendly and responsible citizen, no? Now, what if this technology involved using ground-up baby seals and caribou calves? Maybe even with some pulverized kittens and Cocker Spaniels tossed in? Would you pump your gas tank full of that concoction? Some of us would in a heartbeat. Others? Well, there's not enough red paint on the planet for the PETA people to splash on our cars if such a fuel was marketed. Even non-Peta people might think twice.

Not that there's anything wrong with the PETA people that two quick slaps wouldn't cure, they've somehow confused themselves with people on a mission from God. These things happen. They do, however, serve to point out that the chase for a new energy source is bound to aggravate some people. A lot of people advocate using corn, mostly those people who are in a position to benefit economically from the huge bonanza of corn-based automobile fuel. The problem with corn is that it produces an equally inefficient and polluting fuel as petroleum and would cut back sharply on the available food supplies on a planet that already buries 36,000 people every single day from starvation, most of them small children. How many more of our children should we allow to die so we can fill up our gas tanks and heat our homes cheaply? Another 36,000 daily for an annual tally of 26 million starvation deaths? Seems pretty callous. And wouldn't popcorn be like 25 bucks a bag then? That's a riot waiting to happen.

Then there's nuclear energy to heat our homes and produce our electricity, a proven technology that scares the crap out of everybody. The phrase "the next Chernobyl" is terrifying for those of us in no hurry to to glow in the dark or grow that third eye we've always dreamed of. Then you read about China building a whole bunch of these things and also the storage facilities for nuclear waste in what is eerily described as an "earthquake zone" and you wonder if that's their master plan to reduce their population. And so you look elsewhere for a fuel that won't starve half the planet and toast the other half.

So far the solar power industry has been pretty lame, with the costs to save pennies a month off your electric bill running into tens of thousands of dollars unless they come up with something cheaper and more effective. Which is odd, when you consider how effective the sun is in keeping the entire planet warm and hospitable to human life. Wind power also sounds promising with those gigantic propellors on top of those towers, as does tidal energy, collecting the vast power from the most reliable source of energy around, the oceans' tides. But none of these things will run our cars unless somebody invents an electric car motor with a great battery. And the problem with making batteries is all that poisonous lead used in their manufacture and the ensuing ground contamination around battery factories. Then you're back to even more unusable land and another starvation threat.

There's always that algae some people are talking about to replace gasoline. Algae has no human organizations looking to save it nor is it a huge part of anybody's diet. But will it work? And just as importantly, will it stink and be potentially poisonous like a lot of algae seems to be? Where would this stuff be produced, in some giant shower stall? Or will swamps be our new refineries? Most of us could live with that, except maybe those PETA people who wouldn't want the alligators to be too inconvenienced. Now, if only someone could come up with a fuel that uses ground-up PETA people, we'd be getting somewhere. Rich ladies could wear their fur coats without fear again, and Koreans could wok their dogs to their hearts' content without any flack from PETA. As a matter of fact, they might even fry those puppies in cooking oil made from PETA members. There may be a way out of this energy dilemma after all! Well, either that or we get our scientists to get off their duffs and realize they live in a nation that put a man on the moon forty years ago so the excuse that it's just too darn hard doesn't apply around here.