Rethink Fossil Fuels

We all love the inputs, but what about the outputs ?

Fossil Fuels have been providing an easy life and easy pickings for the citizens and enterprises of the industrialised world for some time.

People love their jet-fuelled lives. One man will move one kilometre from his home to a restaurant in two and a half metric tonnes of steel and glass believing he is admired for his larger-than-car-sized car. He will wear sunshades, and oil-slicked hair (if he has any) and sport a tan from his recent holiday over the ocean. A life of glory and feeling good about himself.

But what about the emissions ? What, indeed, about the environmental devastation at the places the Fossil Fuels (and metal and glass) were mined and refined and manufactured ?

What do we leave behind ?

The oil fields of Azerbaijan :-

Image Credit : Edward Burtynsky

The coal mine tailings of The Philippines :-

The duck-killing Tar Sands tailings ponds of Alberta, Canada :-

Coal sludge, Tennessee :-

Fish-killing Bay Shore :-

Airborne Uranium dust from the outback in Australia (Uranium is a “fossil” element – there’s only so much on Earth) :-

And of course, the BP Gulf of Mexico slicktastic :-

I could go on. But I won’t just now.

One dilemma – we will probably need to dig up the Earth a bit more for all the metal ores we need to build new Renewable Energy technologies. Or not. We could just comb through the world’s abandoned energy production sites, open-air garbage bins, scavenging for iron, steel and suchlike.