Camp is attending a pre-x-mas book fair in the big city this weekend. That gives me a chance to slip this little essay in.

The world needs power, ever more, to energize everything from electric toothbrushes to e-cars, from computers to manufacturing processes, for lights, cooling and heating. Thousands of activities and consumer gadgets, industrial processes and comfort needs require electricity: power and energy. When we talk and think about renewable energy, we tend to confuse this with free energy, drawn from the sun, the wind and the thermal heat underground, the kind of energy which is boundless and there for the taking. But like the 2^nd law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy within an isolated system always increases, so is the 1st law of life which proclaims: there are no free lunches.       

Energy is wildly abundant all over the universe but harnessing it and then releasing it to drive, move and energize specific tasks like motors, resistance (heat, light) and transistors is where the cost comes in. Labour, infra structure, storage and transmission. Wind and solar radiation are free but to translate them into power is an elaborate and expensive process. Water flows downhill but to hold it back and transform its energy into electricity takes massive dams, turbines, transformers and transmission lines. Burning fossil fuels, which is a finite resource and energy sink, to heat water and drive steam turbines and generators, is also costly and leaves behind planet warming emissions and pollution.  Then there is nuclear power which is a relatively clean energy, except for Uranium mining and burned out fuel-rod storage. That’s about it: hydro, coal, oil, wind, solar and nuclear. Which would you like to power your elevator or charge your electric car?