Game Boy blowout

In our culture’s ever-expanding Green-think, the buzz words de jour are “renewable” and “sustainable.” Neither word comes with an instruction manual. Nor do they always mean the same thing to the same person. Which makes sense, in that most Americans haven’t spent more than 15 minutes actually studying the complexities of all things Green.

Soon we will see waves of windmills wafting above the fruited plains, while miles of industrial solar malls carpet the desert floor. How renewable is that? Maybe I’m just lost in a fog of sustainability, but what will folks do with the plethora of Green-watts scheduled to come on line as the Green Machine rolls across the Road Atlas?

Maybe now’s a good time to stop and scratch the noggin.

Here’s a blip from our friends at the New York Times – “The proliferation of personal computers, iPods, cellphones, game consoles and all the rest amounts to the fastest-growing source of power demand in the world. Americans now have about 25 consumer electronic products in every household, compared with just three in 1980.”

It’s kind of fun seeing cheap digi-gadgets referred to as “consumer electronic products.” Stand by for Green-speak!

But it gets better. The Times goes on to say, “To satisfy the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants…..”

Egad! How many solar panels does it take to equal 560 coal-fired power plants? Answer – you don’t want to know.

So what’s the Green answer to this impending proliferation of power-sucking mania? You guessed it – “Most energy experts see only one solution: mandatory efficiency rules specifying how much power devices may use.” And just when I was getting the hang of Grand Auto Theft IV!

A thought – if folks are using more power, and are expected to use even more as they become increasingly attached to their Game Boy prosthetics, are industrial solar farms being designed to replace existing coal-fired plants? Or are we simply expanding the grid’s footprint in order to party on?

Stand by for a message from your National Grid Keeper.

As Kermit the Frog said, “It’s not easy being green.”

posted by Mudd
all quotes New York Times