Cleaner, Better Energy and Protecting the Environment

By Joseph R. "Joe" Pitts

Smarter, Safer, Renewable Energy and Being Good Stewards of the Environment

Truly renewable sources of energy are few. Wind, solar, and hydroelectric power are used today to produce about seven percent of our nation's electricity. Wind and solar account for about one percent. We definitely need to increase the amount of electricity we produce this way. But the places where wind and solar power can be produced also tend to be far away from the cities that consume that power, creating technical challenges. Sometimes the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, which creates a need for back-up generation capacity.

The most effective thing we can do to protect our atmosphere from pollutants and reduce greenhouse gases is to increase the amount of electricity we generate from nuclear power. France generates over 85 percent of its electricity from 59 nuclear power plants. We, on the other hand, produce only 20 percent of our electricity from nuclear power. Increasing the amount of electricity we generate from nuclear power would protect the atmosphere and lessen our dependence on oil imported from dangerous and unstable parts of the globe. Nuclear waste storage is a serious question, but it is a question with viable answers. Nuclear waste can be reprocessed and used again, reducing the volume of radioactive waste by as much as 95 percent. What remains needs to be safely stored and guarded.

The current popularity of hybrid cars is just the beginning of a revolution in cleaner ways to drive. Plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell cars are not as far away as many believe. These technologies need to be promoted and used.

We are blessed to live in a place where many families still farm land first deeded by William Penn 300 years ago. We are conscious of this remarkable heritage and we want to protect it as generations have before us. I am also a person of faith, and I believe that God created the Earth and made it our duty to protect and cherish it. As one bumper sticker says, "Good planets are hard to come by."

Organic gardening, recycling, and simply turning the lights out when we're not in a room are some of the things each of us can do to protect the environment. Smart growth policies and open space preservation programs are some of the things we can do as a community to conserve our heritage. Lessening our dependence on imported fossil fuels and promoting the development of clean and renewable energy sources are critical priorities for our nation. There is great reason for optimism in this area, but we need to make the transition through encouragement, entrepreneurship, and investment--not through taxation, bureaucracy, and punishment, the way the bill presently being pushed in Congress does.