Energy demand of Supercomputers

T. Bone Pickens on Bloomberg TV cited our present lack of an energy policy, a lack extending back over the last 40 years. Regrettably, it may be worse than that. Every oil crisis resulted in futile admonitions to conserve energy without commitment to new low cost sources. Remember the nation wide 55mph speed limit, extended daylight savings time, swizzle stick light bulbs? The list goes on and reflects the shallowness of legislative and executive thinking.

The above New York Times article suggests mammoth new energy needs as computers become increasingly more powerful. It doesn't end there, however. Energy is the life blood of economic growth, cheap, exploitable abundant energy --- clean reliable electric energy for increasingly sophisticated and sensitive productive equipment.

And what is it that leaders do not understand about energy independence. During WWII energy independence was a strategic credo as inviolate as Bill of Rights.

Drill baby drill -- for oil and pipe all of the natural gas. Forget coal and bio-fuel at least corn. The human cost is too great for coal and so too is the carbon mitigation. We can't afford the loss of food production using bio-fuels except for waste, and so too is the carbon mitigation.

Make greater use of natural gas: for heat, for transportation, generating electricity and for hydrogen production. Use new nuclear technology based on Thorium. Be energy independent in two years and produce abundant cheap energy within a decade. The private industry cannot do this without presidential leadership!

(Natural gas contains more hydrogen and less carbon so is more efficient while producing less green house gas byproduct.)

My rant for the day.