Reviewing the Energy Crisis
Secretary, Guacu-Vira Sustainable Development Center
Your article on alternative energy sources misses the point when it comes to hydrogen power. Fuel cells are mainly a way to replace heavy and polluting conventional power packs (like those needed in electric cars) with a light and clean device, but hydrogen itself is not an alternative energy source. Giovanni Tiezzi Siena, Italy
After reading your special report on the future of energy, I was left perplexed and frustrated by the omission of fusion power. Fusion power will provide practically unlimited amounts of cheap electricity with no harmful greenhouse gases (helium) and negligible risk to our environment. Scientists from around the world have collaborated over the past 50 years to develop and harness the power of fusion. They have now reached a stage they are calling “the next step.” This year scientists from Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia will be submitting final proposals for the next generation of fusion-research reactors. They believe this will lead to the first commercially viable power generators. Unfortunately, when the international group of fusion scientists completed the design of the new reactor in 1998, the U.S. government balked at its share of the $6 billion cost and pulled out of the project.
The budget was reduced by 50 percent and the remaining countries were forced to scale back their ambitions, thus significantly delaying the advent of a new age. The “low power density” sources–wind and solar energy–will supply a fraction of future energy needs. Nuclear power has obvious environmental implications. This leaves fusion power as the only viable “high power density” source for the future. Let’s hope President Bush sees the light and joins the international quest for the holy grail of energy sources: fusion power. Mark Harrison London, England
In “The Atom Option,” Richard L. Garwin ignores the insoluble plutonium-waste-disposal problem and its extreme toxicity. Statistically, Earth is hit every 7,000 years by a big asteroid, which causes a shift of the planet’s axis, global quakes, flooding and an ice age. Humanity can survive this only if everything isn’t contaminated with plutonium from the broken-up depositories of the nuclear industry. So, let’s not be shortsighted if we want the Earth to continue to be inhabited by humans. Prof. Albert Fischer Dortmund, Germany
Your articles on the future of energy make many interesting and valid points, but you don’t mention an untouched U.S. source–shale-oil deposits. I first saw figures for shale oil in the ’60s, quoting recoverable oil of 1 trillion barrels from rock, yielding just 15 gallons per ton. These estimates still show more potential recoverable oil than in all the Middle Eastern sources. Did you omit mentioning shale oil just because of the current cost of extraction? Remember that costs of extraction can fall with better technology, and that costs of acceptable supply can rise. David Bird Hatfield, England
I read Fred Guterl’s article “The Energy Squeeze” with much attention. Several ways to produce energy are mentioned, but not energy piles. This technology is increasingly used in Europe when a building has to be founded on piles because of bad soil conditions: deep concrete piles are used as a heat exchanger coupled with an electricity-driven heat pump. In summer the building is air-conditioned using the low soil temperature, and the thermal energy is stored in the ground. In winter the heat energy is recovered for heating. And all with much greater efficiency. This new technology might interest Americans. R. A. Beck Villeneuve, Switzerland
Your articles on the future of energy refueled my concerns about what is not being done about greenhouse-gas emissions and renewable energy. So many people are still opposed to converting fossil fuels to clean energy sources. We know the risks: global warming, running out of fossil fuel before replacements are harnessed, loss of wildlife, health risks. Yet our world is still ignoring what is no longer merely a future concern but an imminent threat. Some arguments used by opponents seem just plain stupid. How, for example, can people still be so concerned about the esthetics of a wind turbine when we have created 100-story skyscrapers that have constant smog halos? Wind turbines are attractive when the alternative is a world where everyone is forced to wear gas masks, or where climate change means daily life is a struggle against the elements. Not that we should destroy pristine environments for renewable energy, but there is a happy medium. Lucy Percival Brisbane, Australia
The Middle East Mess
Doesn’t the United States realize that by not reacting to Israel’s continual destruction of Palestinian infrastructures and its humiliation of Yasir Arafat by besieging and storming his headquarters that it is only asking for more acts of despair on American interests all over the world–including on its own soil? Jean-Francois Sauter Geneva, Switzerland
It’s amazing how history repeats itself. In Nazi Germany, the Jews, a minority group, were the victims of the most atrocious state-sponsored terrorism in human history. Their goods were confiscated, their properties burned and destroyed and their lives terminated without trials. Their human dignity was taken away by a state that had the power and the means to impose its violence. Now descendants of the Holocaust practice the same indiscriminate methods against another people. Bulldozers tear down the houses and property of suspected enemies without open judicial verifications. Palestinian people are collectively punished simply for being Palestinian. Israeli soldiers shoot and kill them, prisoners are marked with tattoos just like Jews were during the Holocaust and medical aid is denied to wounded Palestinians by Israeli tanks. The state of Israel excuses itself by saying that it is trying to eliminate terrorism, but it is causing further terrorism with its own brand. I feel sorry for the Jewish people. The Israeli government’s actions remind me of the darkest period in history. There are cruel, amazing similarities that I, like many others, deeply regret. Miguel Nadal Stockholm, Sweden
It was the esteemed author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who wrote that you have power over people as long as you do not deprive them of everything. When you have taken everything from a man he is no longer in your power–he is free again. If you take away everything from the Palestinians–even the last hope of a Palestinian state–then they are absolutely free to do what they now have embarked on with their suicide bombings. Flemming Kramp Sandved, Denmark
The future of Israel will not be determined by its conflict with the Palestinians but rather, by the forces working within its society. That is to say, tensions between religious Jews and secular ones, and tensions between Israel’s Jews and its Arabs. Whether Israel will survive the conflicts between these groups is hard to foresee, but I fear that historian Tom Segev’s statement “It’s no longer a miracle that Jewish society exists here–it’s a fact of life,” may not be true in 30 years. Oded Zmora Beersheba, Israel
What is happening in the Middle East is the outcome of a demographic explosion (what some people call a “Malthusian crisis”). The Chinese made laws to have only one child per family, Europeans have a zero percent population growth and India’s men get vasectomies. But Muslims practice polygamy without family planning and have many children. We Israelis have no other place to go, and we will not admit 6 million Palestinians onto our land. I appeal to the United Nations to change its resolution and to specifically allow the return of 250,000 Palestinians, with a possibility of compensation against right of return. I’d like the Chinese representative of the United Nations consider representing Israel. Liora Bernstein Tel Aviv, Israel
Dividing the world into terrorists and antiterrorists gives Ariel Sharon and his fanatic, expansionist backers the perfect pretext to accelerate the self-destruction of Israel, a state once revered and admired by many people around the world. While presumably “defending” the state of Israel, the Sharon government’s hidden agenda is to defend and even expand the illegal settlements, in the process sacrificing their own people and destroying the future of Israel. The tears shed at the funeral of the visionary statesman Yitzhak Rabin were apparently crocodile tears marking the beginning of this vicious process. D. F. Swart Falkoping, Sweden
Ariel Sharon’s policy that “Palestinians have to be hit hard” does nothing but add fuel to a raging fire (“A Rising Tide of Blood,” World Affairs, March 18). It simply validates the Palestinian militants in your article who say “we have nothing to lose.” Palestinians are left with only two choices: fight the occupation, or accept it and live in humiliation and degradation, as Sharon wants them to. Any dignified person would choose to fight. The world community, and especially the United States government, must wake up and realize that this man, Sharon, is trying to destroy a population. This has been his plan all along. “Peace” to him means the defeat and surrender of the Palestinians. Haj Hasan Amman, Jordan
I found your article informative and thought-provoking, but you may want to consider a couple of points. First, the Palestinians would have had an independent state today if they had accepted the division plan approved by the United Nations in 1947 or if they had not refused the peace accord at Camp David in 2000. Second, there is no question that Israel’s occupation has to end. However, this goal will be hard to achieve as long as Israelis believe that it is only an intermediate step toward the final destruction of Israel. In the current atmosphere, and after decades of Palestinian leadership’s preaching destruction, allaying such fears would be hard to accomplish. Izhar Groner New York, New York
Your article “A Rising Tide of Blood” says that “even as the rhetoric gained sudden momentum, so did the carnage in the occupied territories”–implying that the carnage is being carried out by the Israeli side. The article did not bother to mention that among the 20 Palestinians killed were armed terrorists who were actively shooting. And yes, there was indeed carnage: innocent civilians were deliberately targeted when a crowd of Israelis leaving the synagogue after the Sabbath were blown apart by a suicide bomber. This was followed by the murder of 10 Israelis the day after and, later in the week, the death of five Israeli teenagers who were shot while they studied. All this is carnage, but not the carnage you decided to mention. I cannot understand why. Ilana Teitelbaum via Internet
