Inner City Farmer

Get used to hearing the names Nocera and Kanan. They could become the next Watson and Crick. In the July 31 edition of Science magazine it was revealed that Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT, and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, have created a process that makes it possible to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, using only the sun’s energy. In the second step of this process the oxygen and hydrogen are recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity capable of powering houses and cars.

Exactly how this gets done is a little beyond me. I’m just a farmer after all. But for those interested in reading more about this amazing discovery you should check out this article from MIT’s website.

Unfortunately, this technology is still a few years away from actually getting implemented, which, I guess, explains why it’s not on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Meanwhile, the demand to open up our country’s coasts to offshore drilling continues by those too short-sighted to realize the folly of such a plan, further proof that we are the dumbest animal on the planet. The answer to the world’s energy problem was right there in the sky this whole time, but none of us had the brains or vision to simply look up.

Have you heard about this miracle weed? And, no, I’m not talking about the stuff featured in Pineapple Express. Jatropha curcas contains a seed that when crushed produces a high-quality biofuel capable of powering a standard diesel vehicle. The plant yields four times as much fuel per acre as soybeans and more than ten times more than corn. Even better, it grows almost anywhere, thriving in even the poorest soil. I’ve got plenty of poor soil in my backyard and no desire to buy any more carbon-producing gasoline for my van. Looks like it’s time for me to start planting some jatropha….

In today’s world it’s easy for an environmentalist to get frustrated and say the whole world is going to hell—Bush lifting the ban on offshore drilling immediately comes to mind. But there are places that prove that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you look hard enough, you can find little pockets of hope.

One of them is the Danish island of Samso, which acclaimed environmental author Elizabeth Kolbert wrote about in a recent New Yorker article. Since 2005, the island has produced more energy than it’s used, and most of that energy has come from renewable sources like wind turbines and heating plants that run on biomass. In less than a decade the island’s residents went from heating their houses with oil brought in by tankers to earning an international reputation for living on “the renewable-energy island.”

Another example is Kamikatsu, a small town in the hills of southeastern Japan, which prides itself on producing “Zero Waste.” Residents have to compost all their food scraps and sort the rest of their garbage into 34 different categories for recycling. The one flaw in the plan, critics point out, is that residents have to drive their recyclables to Kamikatsu’s Zero Waste Centre.

For all its talk about being a Green City, Austin has a long way to go… but, seeing the change that’s starting to take place all around the world, I remain hopeful.

Having already made a fortune off of oil, T. Boone Pickens is now looking to expand his empire into the realm of the renewable energy. In August, 2007, he announced his intention to build 2,700 wind turbines in Texas, which would produce 4,000 megawatts by 2014, enough to power a million homes.

At first glance the man seems to have become a tree hugger overnight—the so-called “Pickens Plan” would produce 20 percent of the country’s energy, perhaps signaling an end to the creation of any more environmentally unfriendly coal-burning power plants—but before you start patting him on the back keep reading. A major element of his plan involves using natural gas to power cars instead of to generate electricity, which the folks at Climate Progress to a good job of discrediting.

Meanwhile, as the media focuses on his foray into wind, he’s been busy buying up all the water in Texas. He has spent $75 million purchasing the ground water rights for 200,000 acres of Texas with the idea of selling water pulled out of the Ogallala Aquifer to El Paso or Dallas. “I know what people say,” he told critics. “Water’s a lot like air. Do you charge for air? ‘Course not. You shouldn’t charge for water. Well, OK, watch what happens. You won’t have any water.”

As scary as this business magnate sounds, he’s still one of the few people in this country who has actually devised a plan that will wean us off foreign-produced non-renewable energy. I’d almost rather give the money I spend on electricity to him than our hopelessly behind-the-times government, and if he has it his way that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Nothing says Independence Day more than getting in the car and heading for some far off destination. To celebrate the Fourth when I was 22, I got in a car with my then girlfriend and drove ten hours just to see a show at Red Rocks (Blues Traveler and the Allman Brothers), and then we returned the very next day. When I lived in Eugene, Oregon, I drove an hour to the coast just to get drunk and watch high-school kids shoot bottle rockets at each other (and on one unfortunate occasion, me). Strange to think that such holiday road tripping is quickly becoming a luxury most of us can’t afford.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Instead of looking at the impending “energy crisis” as a bad thing, why not celebrate the benefits of the Death of the Car Culture? The mainstream media is starting to catch on. In a special report, Time magazine lists “Ten Things You Can Like About $4 Gas.” I feel like I could name twenty more.

So where am I going this weekend? I’m staying right here in Austin, enjoying my house, maybe doing a little work outside. The farthest I plan to go is Barton Springs, a world-class swimming hole less than ten minutes from my house. I could drive two hundred miles or fly half way around the world, and I wouldn’t find a better swim spot.