I'm not referring to the physics definition of energy, but the socio-political definition of energy. In this context we immediately think of oil or coal. This is because most of our energy needs in the United States are provided primarily by these two substances. Economically and politically, oil and coal are effectively the definition of energy today.

This isn't true everywhere in the world. For example, France generates most of it's energy from nuclear power, but it powers its vehicles with oil and gas. Iceland's major energy source is geothermal and in Germany, that overcast country in the middle of central Europe, natural gas and nuclear power have provided the bulk of its energy, but surprisingly the use of solar power is on the rise in a big way. So we see that the definition of energy varies from place to place as we move around the world.

Perception is everything,

You know, I hate this phrase, but it appears to be the case in almost everything we do today. Our perception of what usable sources of energy are center around a "something" that is available 52 week a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Energy appears to be an all or nothing kind of thing. Oil and coal fit that perception very nicely because complex infrastructures have been built up to over the past century to make energy produced from these substances consistently available. For the most part, with exception to the occasional brown out, energy produced from oil and coal meet that perception very well, despite their toxic side effects, which range from poisoning populations to endangering global stability.

We've become so accustomed to thinking of a substance as a source of energy that it's only very recently that we've started to consider that one or more processes can fit our energy wants and needs., By process I mean manufacturing and distribution. Something in which the United States has pretty much led the world over the past century. While it is true that alternate, so called renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power generation are not currently as robust as our traditional energy sources, this doesn't mean that renewable energy cannot replace oil, gas and coal as viable energy sources for the U.S. population.

Traditionally, pretty much all it took to put a power source in place was to build an oil, coal or gas or nuclear plant and string wires into the existing power grid. You get the plant operating and they pretty much remain operating (notwithstanding the occasional maintenance break) until they're retired. Centralized power generation for the masses. The problem with this setup of course - if a power plant goes down expectantly, entire neighborhoods, town or cities are left without power. Our electrical grid power system was never really designed to reroute power in such dynamic situations, as witnessed by wide spread black outs over large areas of the United States. It's surprising to me that our perception of our current power delivery system is as good as it is.

Don't think of intermittent, think of Tag-Team

It's true that the sun doesn't always shine and that the wind doesn't always blow. Taken together however, one or the other is pretty much always available. In order to make full use of these and other renewable energy sources, we must put into place a means of distributing energy dynamically. Get that generated power from where ever it's available to where ever it's needed. Just as oil and coal have become "reliable" by virtue of the infrastructure built to sustain these energy sources, so renewable energy sources can meet these needs when an appropriate infrastructure is put into place: The so-called Smart Grid .

The current fossil fuel infrastructure grew up over nearly a century of fits and starts, mistakes and lessons learned, and is largely invisible to the average energy user. In order to successfully switch to renewable energy, the smart grid will have to be designed from the start to be a dynamic means of efficiently directing energy traffic. None of this new infrastructure requires major new discoveries or technologies. It's all doable right now. The sooner the task of designing and building the smart grid is undertaken, the sooner we can begin to drastically reduce our dependence on oil and coal.,

A final perception

Humans probably first became dependent on the need for energy when they discovered how to make and control fire. Fire quickly became essential for survival. Back in those times generating energy amounted to burning dead twigs, leaves and logs. Today, after tens of thousands of years of technological and social development, humans still need to burn dead things to survive. It almost seems quaint.,