My power went out this afternoon unexpectedly for several hours.  I know other people in some countries go through this or worse all the time, but it threw off my entire day.  I went to a nearby coffee shop to use my smartphone to at least read online,  but then discovered my phone was quickly running out of power too.  It made me realize how much we depend on our electricity and how easy it is to become completely disrupted when power is turned off for a few hours.

The coffee shop had free wi-fi and was packed with people working on laptops.  It got me to thinking that we need more reliable power than we have.  If this had been January, people would have been freezing in their homes.  The U.S. power grid is overtaxed and meant for an earlier era, not 2010 where so much is demanded of it.   It was meant for 50 or 100 million people, not 300 million, who are using it more than ever.  And we need uninterrupted power.  Anyone who thinks we could transition to living more simply, without electricity, without power, is dreaming.  Our brains and work habits are now wired for the internet and the increased use of it will take more power, not less.  That means that we will have a difficult time conserving energy in the future.  There are more appliances and heating systems in use in the United States by far than 20 years ago and it increases every year.  Add a few million electric cars to that and the amount of power needed will grow even more.

We don’t have to have a future of less power.  Why conserve solar power or wind power if there is an abundance of it.  If we start using renewable power all the time, conservation won’t be an issue.  The sun and wind and geothermal power are sources that are free and infinite (at least as far into the future as we can imagine). We need to jump start renewable power and a better more reliable way of transporting power to people.  If we don’t, power outages and brownouts will become common everywhere.

We need more power in the world — but not coal.   There is good news about the rebellion against the coal industry, from Ted Nace, originator of Coal Swarm.  He has a new book out called Climate Hope, and was recently interviewed by Alternet.

Discussing his books Gangs of America and Climate Hope, Coalswarm founder Ted Nace talks about the rise of corporations and Big Coal, the growing network of grassroots movements against coal, and why, despite the non-binding resolution coming out of Copenhagen, we should have hope.

Christine Shearer: Especially since in that 1886 case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, “corporate personhood” came not from the actual judicial decision but from the court reporter’s notes on the case.

Ted Nace: Yes, and that’s just the most well known of a long string of court decisions endowing corporations [...]