The coming man-made energy crisis

I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I’m a strong advocate for the environment. I like to breath clean air. I like to dive on healthy pristine ocean reefs. I like my snow to taste good when I totally bite it while tearing down the ski slopes.

I am increasingly seeing signs of a global man-made energy crisis.

When people ask me if I believe in man-made global warming I say “absolutely”. I also believe in cow-made global warming. Yes, COWS. Actually cows emit more harmful gases into the air than us humans. But of course we grow cows to feed people so I suppose you could still blame us humans.

I believe that humans are impacting the environment — both positively and negatively. I believe that some people are spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt for political and financial gain. I mean, look who is making millions off of carbon trading or off of government grants. People are going to say almost anything when their livelihood is at stake. Yes. I’m saying that people are probably lying — on both sides of the political isle.

My chief concern is that politicians and carbon traders are going to pick winners and losers amongst all the available energy options. And generally their choices will hurt critical sectors of the American economy. Sure it would be cool to setup a bunch of wind turbine manufacturing plants in the US. But those plants will do nothing to offset the loss in manufacturing to countries with cheaper energy generation. China has to be licking their chops as they add new power plants every month.

Will datacenters that consume 3%+ of all power in the US be viable in a future driven by high energy costs and carbon taxes? Suddenly those off-shore datacenters are starting to look pretty good.