Plastic bags to the rescue

Another post by our good friend Loren Ibsen:

I was discussing plasma arc gasification with a friend of mine the other day. Basically, this process involves generating a 650V electrical arc in an inert gas like nitrogen. At high temperatures, this creates a plasma field that rips apart material at the atomic (not sub-atomic) level. The idea is to feed trash into the field, collect the resultant energy and byproducts like synthetic gasoline formed when the elements are reconstituted into useful molecules, and eliminate the need for landfills.
The essay below is adapted from an email I sent to this friend. Now that you know something of plasma gasification, the piece will make more sense:
I stand accused of being in love with big projects to address the problems we face, and I fully cop to that. However, I also love small projects that make sense. Today I saw two of my neighbors at Walmart. Their child's elementary has come up with some kind of half propaganda/half fundraising/half-assed scheme that is everything you would expect of a "public-private partnership". Walmart will give the school 5 (count them: five) whole American dollars for every giant (4 feet high by 2.5 feet diameter) clear landscaper's sack crammed full of shopping bags.
This project has been going on all year at school. The teachers have hectored the students into dicking around collecting bags and wasting school time and resources storing these things. That's when they aren't using valuable class time preaching the litany of evils that plastic bags are responsible for.
Of course, my neighbors have fully bought in. What else is a "stakeholder" there for, if not to bleat assent to the consensus of the flock? They are predisposed to believe, as are the teachers who should presumably know better. But just as the Judas goat works its spell by telling the doomed what they want to hear, all the while believing its own lies, such are the educators to whom we've entrusted our children. (Yes, I've mixed sheep and goats. Pretend that was intentional--a clever reference back to the unholy chimera of public-private partnerships.)
And the payoff to this program? One semester of kids' and adults' time, storage,transportation and opportunity costs have yielded 12 sacks, or $60! I like these people, so I was merciful. But, good Gaia, $60!?! Maybe the teachers would do better to teach their pupils some classical economics, not to mention science and math. It sounds good to "Think globally while acting locally", but remember that the predicate is that you first "THINK".
These kids probably already know what a condom is, but ten to one they couldn't tell a male from a female thread. I'm pretty sure though that they do know they are doing penance because we screwed the Indians. Instead of wiping the tears off Iron Eyes' face (ecofreak insult, not racial-the guy wasn't even really a "Native American"), they should be learning scale ratios so they can build a demo plasma gasifier for the school. At least then they could do something useful with all those bags (i.e., burn them).
Of course, it is more fun, and in keeping with the times, to seek out witches when you are in a burning mood, and what better symbol of progress and wealth to demonize than one of the best inventions ever, the plastic bag? I didn't have the heart to tell these people that if we were to eliminate all plastic bags tomorrow, we would save .16% (please read that again--0.16%) of the oil America uses each year. That's generous, since a dynamic calculation would need to account for the increased use of paper and the attendant transportation costs of this heavier, weaker material. I was just glad they didn't go after plastic bottles (0.02% at last count). No doubt that will occur next semester. Their boy is in an advanced class, after all.
What happened to the optimism that made this the best damn country on Earth? (C'mon, in your heart you know it is.) We kicked Hitler in the nuts, gave the Commies a serious beatdown, built Hoover Dam, faked a Moon landing, and still manage to feed the world. We've produced the best scientists, engineers, mathematicians and pretty much own the Nobel in economics. Now we're going to teach our kids to rummage around like raccoons?
I say big projects for a big people. Honestly, if you were a kid again, which would you rather grow up to be, a "photovoltaic technician" or a !!!.PLASMA GASIFIER!!! Doesn't that just sound like something out of E.E. "Doc" Smith and the Lensman Series? 50 years ago if you had gone into a bar and declared you were a !!!PLASMA GASIFIER!!!, that alone would have guaranteed you'd get laid, maybe right there on the spot. While the photovoltaic technician might have made it to first base on a slow night, ultimately he would sleep alone. If that's what American guys want to be, we are in trouble. And if somehow American women are now selecting for mere scavengers, things are worse than I thought.
The truth is that we will never need less energy than we use today. We need a hell of a lot more if we plan to make something of ourselves. Put today's relatively lame solar panels on Enkidu's hut to help him break out of mere subsistence. (By the way, that's merely a slightly inapposite Gilgamesh reference--don't rush to be so offended; I've said plenty enough here to be justifiably pissed about without you waving the PC wand.) As for me, I want plasma gasifiers, fission, fusion, and giant space based solar arrays. Give me underwater turbines and land based solar collectors if your vision is so limited, but I want energy, and a lot of it and I want it now.
Let's burn all the oil we need, if that is what it takes to raise us out of poverty (yeah, you heard me--a hundred years from now, people will look back on our standard of living like we look at cavemen, or the thirld world). When that runs out, burn coal, tar sands and shale. Burn the waste and burn the byproducts. Burn it all! Then burn it again to be sure. That's a recycling program worth talking about.
For those who think it's stupid to burn a wonderful product like oil--a material capable of being transformed into almost anything the human mind can dream up, keep in mind that government and agribusiness have decided our best alternative is to burn food. They've chosen a winner and screwed up as usual. I for one don't want to tell Enkidu that his kid won't grow up to be the scientist that perfects the genetically engineered microbe that gives off hydrogen (this is a real project, by the way) because he starved after we poured his dinner into a three cylinder Smugmobile so we could drive plastic bags to Walmart like coals to Newcastle.