Evaluation of Green Technology and the Potential for Environmental Benefit

It is important to first recognize that for the most part human kind has ceased to acknowledge the sacred commonality we beings share with the rest of nature. How much this may have to do with the idea that by our birth in we have in fact “sinned” ignores the fact that as we are one with nature we therefore have in fact never left the “father”. By first awakening to this fact would of course greatly expedite human kinds realization of what needs to occur in order to realign our purpose with the natural order.

To arrive at an informed decision point and to choose an appropriate environmentally correct technology, requires that a number of very essential evaluations be made, primary among which are, first to select categorically, the appropriate energy source that best matches the “work” to be performed. While this seems obvious one need only look at the case of ethanol from corn to understand what we are talking about. Not only is ethanol a poor choice of fuel for reason of the inability to transport it via existing pipelines, it produces significantly lower BTU’s than gasoline and cannot be used as a stand alone fuel to power existing reciprocating combustion engines. But probably a more significant issue is the impact on corn availability as a food staple and the resulting escalation of prices in the market.

The principle method for measuring the EROEI or Energy Return On Energy Invested is based upon a calculation of the total energy cost in terms of Kilo grams of Calories resulting from the manufacture of any given source of green energy divided by the Kilo grams of Calories expended in its manufacturing. For example a tree is the highest rate of return on energy invested to energy produced: 22 to 1. This is calculated based upon the overall land footprint, water use,