Welcome to the Home of the Energy Renegade

This site is created to help bring rational thought to energy production. Mainstream energy thought processes have managed to infiltrate the alternate energy movement and steal it's thunder and lure.

  Has anyone even considered that our whole approach to energy may be the real problem? Of course there are dirty and clean methods for creating energy as well as energy resources that are limited in supply as with hydrocarbons.. That much is obvious on the face of the issue and should be dealt with using appropriate methods and technologies. What I'm really wanting to discuss today is our whole philosophical approach to energy production and distribution.

 The discovery and use of energy is the true source of civilization. Without other than human energy we would very likely still be squatted in caves and shelters chipping flint and tying it to sticks. We would be huddled together on cold days trying our best to keep warm by combining our body heat. By the way it's your turn to move to the outside of the huddle...

 Early on, energy was free for the gathering. A little wood here, some brush over there, a little grass, maybe even some herbivore manure thrown in for flavor and aroma.  At most  there would be disputes among competing tribes over the gathering area's. We went on to develop leaders and chiefs. These went on to become Kings and Emperors. To drive these ambitions and protect ones accumulated power and wealth from other dastardly ambitious souls one had to have the upper hand. More cunning, warriors, strength and better weapons were required. Sitting around the old cave chipping flint and tying it to sticks just wouldn't do anymore. "Hand me that dried sinew please and stop hoarding the flint."

  Well with the advent of fire things improved considerably. "Man this fire sure makes the cave more comfy... Hey!! ... Watch that meat!! ... Don't get it too close to te fire it'll burn and be ruined!!! ... OOps! too late... Well now look what you've done!! That's all we had for dinner, I guess we'll have to eat it anyway, You first, you ruined it!"  We also found we could harden wood in the flames to make our spears tougher. "Watch that water don't spill it on the ..... did you see that? The hot flint just shattered into flakes!?!"  Well ... killing each other just got easier....

  Soon we needed bigger and hotter fires to cook more meat, harden our spear shafts and flake even more flint. "Man!!! ... That fire sure is some handy stuff ...  sayyy, that fires getting kinda big isn't it? Lets put some more rocks around it.  Heeeyyy?!?  Whats this glowing stuff coming out of that green and red rock there?" There we went again. Next thing ya' knew we were trying to burn all kinds of crazy stuff just to see what it would do. That stuff from the rock sure was interesting. We could make patterns in the dirt and it would fill them just like water and when it cooled it was almost as hard as rock. Sure was easier that bustin' knuckles chipping....

 Well one thing led to another and we developed metal weapons, armies and conquest, murder, rape, pillage, banks and corporations. We weren't the free hunter gatherers any more. We liked what the new found fire gave us in the way of comfort, security, easier work loads, better tools, homes and things. Of course there was that group over the mountain and they may come and take what we have away from us ... or maybe, if we are strong enough we can go take what they have! Thus we were coerced to give up our freedoms to those cunning and ruthless enough to take what we have in order to protect ourselves from others that are cunning and ruthless enough to take what ... we ... have......... Wait a minute!!! that hardly seems fair! We give in to one ruthless, unprincipled tyrant to protect us from another ruthless, unprincipled tyrant !!!!! All for what? So we can be secure in the things and way of life that energy has given us. Ya' don't think they collaborate to keep it that way do ya'???

  Today we murder each other wholesale to get the energy and material resources that the other guy controls. Only most of the ruthless, unprincipled tyrants have banded together and formed banks and corporations. Through these banks and corporations they control the whole of the worlds resources and we are but the serfs that lend support to their monopolistic hegemony. Make no mistake about it. A very small aristocratic group owns and controls the vast majority of stocks in the banks and corporations. These are the descendants of the original ruthless, unprincipled tyrants and they haven't changed. They control us through economics, energy, food and control of the governments. It is nearly impossible to be free of their control. More importantly, they've decide there are too many of us... But that's a story for another venue.

  What I'm calling attention to here is that one cannot be free if you depend on an oligarchy for all your needs. There isn't much we can do about the monetary system as things are, other than barter. We are still able to raise our own food if we are willing to get up off our a.... couches and do it.  NOTE: There are movements by the Agribusiness Corporations to outlaw that practice though. After all, just because we have been raising our own food for millennia doesn't mean we are qualified, or that it is safe!? After all this would be for our own good ....... Right?

 The one thing, other than our own food, we CAN do something about is our Energy supply. With all the hoopla surrounding the environment, global warming (I'm still Skeptical of  the cause),  energy resources, alternate energy and energy conservation one thing seems to be missing from the discourse. Are we following the best path on energy policy and practice? It seems to me that the corporations have stuck their well padded wallets into the conversation to, well ...., pad their wallets some more and, as usual, at our expense and using a gun (Government) to do it. Isn't that called armed robbery?

  What ever happened to self reliance? There are substantial technologies that would help free us from the economic slavery of the energy barons. A decentralized system is also far more robust that one where all generation and distribution assets are in only a few locations. Natural disasters, human intervention, equipment failures, accidents, aging infrastructure and even the normal activities of our sun jeopardize the reliability of a centralized generation and distribution system. Whereas a decentralized power and distribution system would tend to localize any failures rather than take down the entire East Coast of the USA and Canada for instance. Better yet would be complete power independence on an individual basis. This is what I'm working towards. Here again it will require us to get up off our collective a...... couches and actually do something useful.

  Well with the exception of a small number of people, organizations and companies the entire focus on alternate energy seems to be Corporate Industrial grade projects. Lets take a minute to look at what is being done.

• Solar:
  • The main emphasis is on large industrial grade projects both photovoltaic and thermal. While this will, in some sense, help alleviate environmental issues you still have infrastructure requirements, power lines, which take up valuable land, create their own hazard, consume substantial materials and natural resources and still leave you an economic slave through dependency on them. It also impacts our freedoms because, naturally, there must be volumes of regulation and taxation. Centralized power systems are also vulnerable to failures caused by both natural and human processes.
• Wind:
  • Here again  the emphasis is almost entirely on Corporate Industrial grade projects. With all the drawbacks stated under solar along with hazards to migratory birds, noise, nuisance to neighbors, require lots of maintenance. Small wind farms using small turbines at the site of use, like my back yard, are a much better solution. Grid connected or not they side step most if not all of the normal drawbacks to industrial grade projects.
• Bio-Fuels:
  • This is a multifaceted subject that is fraught with both promise and fraud.
  • The promise is that there really are promising bio-fuel options out there. The one MOST productive oilseed plant in the world is illegal to grow in the Good Ole USA.The problem is that there are too many corporations that would lose money if it were legal because it would compete with their other products and none of these products are patentable and they wouldn't have a monopoly on its use.
    • It produces:
      • NINE Times as much bio-diesel per acre than the nearest competitor while it requires no fertilizer or herbicide to grow, grows in the poorest soils and it is very drought and water tolerant.
      • non acid paper
      • high protein feed
      • medicines
      • cloth and fiber
      • a biodegradable plastic that you can just mulch when you are done with it.
  • The Fraud is that:
    • The Government mandated ethanol projects use six times the energy to produce ethanol as is recovered in fuel. This is making the fuel situation Worse Not Better.
    • Is pumping over 14 BILLION $$$$ of your tax money into the pockets of corporate insiders through government subsidies.
    • There is the specter of added direct pollution from production
    • Indirect pollution from fertilizers and herbicides
    • Valuable land is being removed from food production at a time when food shortages are becoming common.
    • Food and feed grains are being directly consumed by this process in the face of global food shortages.
    • The prices animal protein are escalating because of feed shortages and rising prices.
•  Geo-Thermal:
  • I actually like this idea. This is one of the few methods of producing power for a grid that makes sense being done on an industrial, corporate scale. Business' and industry need to have power at a capacity that most micro generation sources can't provide. This one makes sense to me. Let industry and business be on the grid. Let the people be free.....
• Nuclear:
  • I'm not crazy about nuclear power but like geo-thermal it makes sense for industrial purposes. There are new and safer technologies that make nuclear power a little more palatable. One process uses pelletized fuel in ceramic balls or rods that just cannot be packed close enough to allow a meltdown condition to occur. There is still the waste disposal issue though. I will explore this further in another article.
• Wave Tidal and Current Energy:
  • This again lends itself to industrial level projects. There are eyesore, shipping, boating, and erosion considerations though. Many of these are being addressed.
• Fusion:
  • Unfortunately still a ways off.
• Hydrogen:
  • This is an area that shows some promise, not for generation but for storage of energy. There are still many hurdles to leap and There are many capable people working on it. Here again this mostly lends itself to industrial level uses.
• Dark Energy, Zero Point Energy, Cold Fusion etc.: 
  • While I'm eternally hopeful I'm not about to hold my breath for any of these. While there are some indications that there may be something to these idea's the principles are poorly understood and a long way off if not impossible. We need energy NOW! I plan to keep these articles centered on what is available today.

  As you may have guessed by now I advocate freedom through Personal Energy and Food Independence and the Exposure of the Energy Frauds that prevail throughout the Mainstream Media, Corporate propaganda and the government, especially the FDA/USDA & DOE.

  I am the Energy Renegade, fighting for the freedom of the individual and the exposure of the fraud perpetuated by the "System".

Also Known As: The Windstalker.