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This segment will explore both the technology and politics behind
a variety of centralized and locally controlled energy sources
including steam, coal, natural gas, oil, water, solar, electricity,
nuclear power, hydrogen fuel cells and more. Among the stories
covered here are John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil, Clarence
Kemp, the father of solar energy in the U.S., Daniel Halladay,
who introduced the first mechanical windmill for pumping water
in the Midwest, George Washington Carver, who researched industrial
uses for farm crops, which would later expand into the concept
of "farm Chemurgy" backed by Henry Ford and others as
a way to improve American agriculture and introduce renewable
energy systems into general commerce, and the Honda Motor Company
who has introduced the first hydrogen fuel cell car to be government
certified for everyday use. The energy episode will also discuss
the 1973 Energy Crisis when OPEC imposed an oil embargo causing
oil prices to skyrocket precipitating a worldwide recession.
As history has already shown, some sources of energy are friendly
to the environment and others can inflict devastating damage.
We will examine the environmental impact of such dramatic events
as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the Santa Barbara and Valdez
oil spills. As told by the people who were there, these dramatic
events convey a power and urgency that helps explain the environmental
movement’s shift from conservation into activism.
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