Getting serious on energy

Imagine the following statement from a presidential candidate:


Our nation’s situation with regard to oil is precarious. Most of the world’s supply and annual production of crude oil are controlled by various foreign governments, most of which are despotic and unstable and range in attitude from being perfidious false friends to being adversaries or even overt enemies. For many of the last thirty five years, these governments have been able to rig the price and control the supply of crude and to transfer vast amounts of unearned wealth from American consumers to themselves. These actions have retarded the growth of our economy, skewed our balance of payments, funded terrorists, and made us susceptible to blackmail. They have even led us into war.

For a number of reasons it is time to say that enough is enough and to make our nation and economy no longer dependent on oil from government cartels or hostile nations.

As a first step I propose that the Congress authorize the National Science Foundation and other agencies to increase funding significantly for grants for research to improve the technologies for wind, solar, geothermal and other potentially viable non-depleting sources of energy and also provide large tax credits for similar research by private companies with a goal of making these sources fully competitive, unsubsidized alternatives for the large scale production of power. We should support similar research to make cleaner and more efficient use of coal competitive with conventional use.

Next I propose that this nation make an immediate commitment to bring on line as soon as possible as many new nuclear power plants as may be needed both to generate additional electricity to sustain our growing economy and to provide electric power for such things as hybrids, electric vehicles, and hydrogen-fueled cars and trucks. I recommend that, using thirty years of advances in sensor and computer technology and design engineering, we seize the opportunity to deliver safe, non-polluting power in quantities sufficient for our needs, and that we move quickly with appropriate regulation but without the absurd lead times of the recent past.

I also recommend that the Congress extend major tax credits to businesses and individual taxpayers for modifications to their property that improve efficiency and conserve power, and that it reconsider and repeal any pseudo-conservation measures and mandates that are in fact only disguised pork.

Because for the foreseeable future we will need more oil for our cars and trucks than we can provide from our existing conventional oil fields, I propose that we begin a crash program to produce enough petroleum from our shale oil reserves to make our nation independent of oil imports from outside North America.

Whether one’s concern is based on worries about climate change, the national security risk of dependence on unreliable foreign suppliers, economic fears about the costs, or simply an unwillingness to be held up by scoundrels, all should agree that ending this dependence is in our self interest.

The steps I have proposed do not require any forced changes in our lifestyles or damage to our economy. Nor do they require us to harm our wilderness preserves, drill off the east or west coasts or worsen our environment. Besides being sensible, they should be palatable to most people across the political spectrum.

Many of the things proposed here will not require new funding by the governments but only changes in regulations or emphasis. Others will require new appropriations and should be funded by a combination of new taxes on imported oil, transfers from less important government programs, and borrowing against the day when we will see a much stronger national economy and significant savings from our efforts, including major savings in military expenditures in the Middle East. Let us begin now.

Of course all one can do is imagine. Such a set of proposals is certainly not optimal and shamelessly contains a little something for everyone from domestic producers to the global warming crowd. However it is better than relying on grass clippings, corn liquor and the benevolence of the Saudis, and something like it might be politically feasible. It also isn’t likely to happen from any of the current candidates.

Unserious on Energy

In considering the actions and pronouncements of governments and politicians, it is often useful to ask a simple question. Are they serious, or are they just grandstanding and protecting their phony baloney jobs? Answering that question can help a person to guess what the real results will be.
For example, politicians of almost all sorts talk about the need to make public K12 education better. However, for all the blathering about crises and taking care of the children, one is struck by how unseriously they approach the issue. Politicians may call better education a priority or even an imperative, but their actions show that they do not really mean it. Protecting the teachers unions, sending money to their states and districts, and mouthing platitudes for the mommies seem to be the real imperatives. There is no concerted effort to analyze the current system, identify its structural and operational weaknesses, consider alternatives, establish appropriate objectives, find solutions and move to implement them. In short, the politicians who are shouting the loudest about education are doing none of the things that a sensible person would do if he wanted to turn around a failing system or organization. So it is reasonable to conclude that the politicians are in fact okay with the status quo except that some of them want to fund it better, and that, sadly, American K12 education won’t be getting much better anytime soon.
We can ask the same question about oil and energy. We in the United States are buying oil at outrageously inflated prices, much of it from government monopolies in unstable and often anti-American countries. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and others use revenue from oil to support terrorist murderers. Venezuela, a formerly reliable source of oil, is now under the rule of an anti-American nut case. We find ourselves shoveling vast sums of money to people who will use at least some of it to try to destroy us. This is not a good situation, and our politicians are finally worked up about it. However, as with education, the lack of seriousness is clear.
Some of our public servants just blame the oil companies. Though they fail to explain why the companies are so much greedier in 2006 than they were five years ago when oil was below twenty dollars a barrel, they get a lot of TV time and stir up a lot of ignorant people.
Others demand that America become self sufficient in energy while insisting that we not drill in Alaska or the east or west coasts, not build new nuclear plants, not burn more coal, not use oil shale, and even not put windmills in any places where they might offend well bred rich folks. Some demand policies and rules that discourage progress and innovation in energy production, and then rant that the foreigners have us over a barrel. Some want to impose dracononian conservation mandates and raise taxes on consumption just so long as they don't anger any voters or raise the price of gas or anything. Some just want more pork. (In fairness there are people in Congress making sensible and productive proposals. However, they are not getting them passed.)
This is not to say that the politicians haven’t been coming up with brilliant technical solutions and vast plans of their own. They have, and so we are now supposed to be using grass clippings to make diesel fuel and corn liquor as a subsidized replacement for gasoline.
We can guess from all this demagoguery and nonsense that not much will happen, and that the government will rock along with the status quo except for more pork for corn producers and maybe extra taxes for oil companies. We will have to hope that the companies and individuals in the energy industries can in time find ways to give this country the power and independence it will need in spite of impediments from our government. While bad enough, that is far from a worst case. Our government could be doing something big and decisive on its own about energy. Then we would be in trouble. It looks as though we will be safe from that.