When we had gerbils, we’d talk about hooking up their exercise wheel to generate electricity. They spun so fast, their feet a blur, they ran with intensity! We had to acknowledge that with the enormous costs of feeding Jet and Pepper and cleaning their cage, it might not be the most economical nor feasible source of energy.
On a short leg east on I-10 from Kerrville to San Antonio, I drove through the juniper hills and passed trucks heading west pulling long trailers. Each trailer bore a single blade of a wind turbine for generating electricity from the wind. I’ve seen such cargo before, but am still in awe. Each individual blade is at least six times the length of the truck cab pulling it. That’s very big! Each blade is engineering art, a work of elegance, a long, simple curved white feather to catch the wind.
A couple days earlier, heading off 84 toward Texas towns that begin with B (Bronte and Blackwell are the two that come to mind), where there had been only ridges and hills and valleys before, there are now gentle windmill giants dotting the hills with great flashing arms. As though they bloomed under the sun.
These are very good. Clean energy and mesmerizing in motion.
Almost as jolly as water wheels would be. Why not hook up the gerbil wheels—on a larger scale—to the tides? Big, big turbines. Not an original idea, but wouldn’t it be cool, the world’s power needs fed by the slosh motion of the oceans pulled back and forth by the moon?
When driving through Denver about a week ago, saw the dense coil of rust-colored soup pooled over the city, burning the eyes, diminishing the Rockies.
What if the car I drove, and all cars, were electric cars, like those lovely, quiet, odorless vehicles designed by GM that were test driven and loved by their owners? (Then reclaimed and destroyed by GM for unestablished reasons? See the movie: ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’)
Car owners fueling their cars by plugging them into a garage socket at night, connecting them to the energy of the oceans’ pulse. (That being the thought that makes oil companies very itchy…)
Our world lit up, our car wheels and spaceships fueled by the rocking of the seas…
No emissions, no sky soup.
2 comments:
Just last week, in our local weekly newspaper, they talked about Chevron and PGE coming to Fort Bragg to talk to interested parties about their plans for harnessing tide power. I was disappointed that it had to be these two particular companies--but still--
Julie
Wow. I didn't know. I read about the idea many years ago, but thought it was considered unfeasible.
That's exciting!
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