Misc. Ramblings

It's the summer time and the living is not very easy. At least, not as it relates to electricity. People everywhere are reaping the results of refusing to build more power plants/conserve eneregy and are facing power outages. Again. Califonians are facing continuing blackouts. Even here, we have had recent power alerts in which consumption had to be reduced to avoid power outages.

Indeed, the founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, in a Washington Post article in April of this year said the choice is to expand use of nuclear power or suffer the effects of global warming. Although this is not the place or time to debate global warming - the point is, according to Moore, the environmental movement must move off its opposition of nuclear because there is nothing else, in the foreseable future, that can replace coal or oil-based power plants.

Although nuclear has its own set of challenges, I don't know of anything better this side of fusion power (which probably won't be usuable in my life time). Yes, here in Hawaii we can and do use solar and wind power. Even hydrogen fuel cells and biofuels are being looked at for vehicles and electricity generation. Probably more than any other state, due to our isolation and highest fuel costs, Hawaii is trying to find alternatives. But for large scale generation of electricty, nothing seems to be as reliable as nuclear and each of the alternatives have serious problems.

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Speaking of problems, the National Weather Service says hurricane Daniel may be headed our way. It crossed over into our neck of the woods recently and is now being tracked by the Central Pacific Hurriacne Center. The current forecast says it should decrease in intensity to tropical storm level by the time it gets here later this week. But with MotherNature, you never know what will happen. For all we know, it could intensify back into a hurricne. Or not. The point here is to prepare now. Local folks need to get their emergncy kits ready. Even if Daniel isn't the BigOne, it's simply a matter of when, not if, such a storm hits us. When that happens, things will be very bad for a long time because help, for us living in the middle of the ocean, is a long, long way away.

Aloha!