“*If the world keeps burning coal like this, all bets are off.*”
- Paul Bledsoe, Director of Communication and Strategy for the National Commission on Energy Policy

On Tuesday, March 4 Paul Bledsoe, the director of communication and strategy for the National Commission on Energy Policy lectured at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on global warming and how to combat it.

Bledsoe believes in the existence of global warming, but he did mention that the global warming issue is debatable. He pointed out that outdoorsmen, recreational hunters and fishermen are noticing a change in the environment.

Bledsoe spoke about the sources the United States currently uses to produces its energy. He presented information showing that this country derives 50 percent of its energy from coal, which he states is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions. He also pointed out that China and India derive 85 percent and 65 percent of their energy from coal, respectively, illustrating that the fight against global warming is a battle the entire world needs to take part in.

“If the world keeps burning coal like this, all bets are off,” said Bledsoe. He stressed that we should capture greenhouse gases from coal fired power plants and bury it in underground caverns, noting that people have been doing this for years in order to increase yields from oil fields.

Bledsoe thinks that one of the key hurdles is that electrical energy cannot be stored. However, there are current efforts to gain the technology capable of efficiently storing electrical energy. He cited fuel cell technology as a step in the right direction. He uses the lack of electrical energy storage to highlight the weakness of solar and wind energy. “You can’t get [energy from these sources] any time you want,” said Bledsoe.

He recommends taxing emissions so that fossil fuels are no longer the cheapest source of energy. He also believes that making energy derived from fossil fuels more expensive will spur private companies to find more economical energy sources.

Ethanol use was another topic addressed at the lecture. Bledsoe said that subsidies and increased demand for ethanol has caused an increase in the price of corn. The problem with this, he says, is that it also causes the price of other consumer staples to increase. He doesn’t believe that we should rely on something as basic as grain for energy.
Instead, he recommends further research into “cellulosic” ethanol, which is an ethanol derived from fibrous waste parts of plants. He believes that this will have a much smaller effect on economics.

Furthermore, Bledsoe believes we need to foster the construction of many more nuclear power plants. He said that the main hurdle in increasing the amount of energy acquired through nuclear means is the problem of nuclear waste. He contends that if Washington were to loosen rules regarding nuclear waste it would incentive the construction of nuclear power plants, which emit no greenhouse gases.

Bledsoe stressed that global warming is a global problem. He believes that in order to convince developing nations to cap their greenhouse gas emissions, developed countries must do so first.

America is not the only one who needs to make changes, according to Bledsoe. He thinks major developing countries need to adopt emissions controls as well. He recognizes that trying to convince a country to self impose an economic slowdown is a hard sell where the average person earns $500-$1,000 a year.

In closing, Bledsoe said that the United States needs to set an example for the world and then use diplomatic tools and technology sharing to influence other countries to control their emissions.

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