Happy Earth Day !
the current edition of Vanity Fair an article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the form of a letter to the next President makes the case for a comprehensive energy policy that is straight forward and convincing in its logic. His argument debunks the "move slowly and cautiously" meme. He makes an excellent case for an aggressive, realistic policy that can be accomplished with the technology we have.
Kennedy is among the most articulate, high profile advocates for the environment in the US today and his arguments are difficult to contradict (Yeah, I know he supports Clinton, but you can't have everything). He illustrates the fallacy of the "move slow" argument with the points made by Lord David Puttnam before the British Parliament.
More below the fold
Last November, Lord (David) Puttnam debated before Parliament an important bill to tackle global warming. Addressing industry and government warnings that we must proceed slowly to avoid economic ruin, Lord Puttnam recalled that precisely 200 years ago Parliament heard identical caveats during the debate over abolition of the slave trade. At that time slave commerce represented one-fourth of Britain’s G.D.P. and provided its primary source of cheap, abundant energy. Vested interests warned that financial apocalypse would succeed its prohibition.
That debate lasted roughly a year, and Parliament, in the end, made the moral choice, abolishing the trade outright. Instead of collapsing, as slavery’s proponents had predicted, Britain’s economy accelerated. Slavery’s abolition exposed the debilitating inefficiencies associated with zero-cost labor; slavery had been a ball and chain not only for the slaves but also for the British economy, hobbling productivity and stifling growth. Now creativity and productivity surged. Entrepreneurs seeking new sources of energy launched the Industrial Revolution and inaugurated the greatest era of wealth production in human history.
Today, we are the slaves - slaves to oil and Middle Eastern despots as well as their European and American cohorts who, together, control the world's major oil supplies, refining and distribution and, subsequently, the price. They control the very value of the dollar, and own a huge share of our national debt and national assets.
As it was with the slave question in England 200 years ago, the "common wisdom" of today is that, American civilization will surely decline and its economy will go to hell in a handbasket if we do not have carbon fuels (including ethanol) to obtain the energy necessary to power our nation. Further, the "wisdom" tells us that alternate energy technology is to {experimental, intermittent, unreliable, not cost effective, it has not been proven- pick any or all) so we will have to rely on fossil fuels in the "near" future. They will however, try to make them less filty and spend a kings ransom on slick TV ads telling you how green THEY are (and telling us how WE can do better) And, I would guess, that "near future", means until they've sucked up all the oil and blown the tops off as many moumtains as they can get away with.
Unfortunately, for proponents of more drilling, more mountain top removal, more "clean" coal, and more ethanol, there is abundant evidence that America has the ability, not only to survive without fossil fuels, but to actually prosper by eliminating them.
It is we know that nations that "decarbonize" their economies reap immediate rewards. Sweden announced in 2006 the phaseout of all fossil fuels (and nuclear energy) by 2020. In 1991 the Swedes enacted a carbon tax—now up to $150 a ton—and as a result thousands of entrepreneurs rushed to develop new ways of generating energy from wind, the sun, and the tides, and from woodchips, agricultural waste, and garbage. Growth rates climbed to upwards of three times those of the U.S.
Iceland was 80 percent dependent on imported coal and oil in the 1970s and was among the poorest economies in Europe. Today, Iceland is 100 percent energy-independent, with 90 percent of the nation’s homes heated by geothermal and its remaining electrical needs met by hydro. The International Monetary Fund now ranks Iceland the fourth most affluent nation on earth. The country, which previously had to beg for corporate investment, now has companies lined up to relocate there to take advantage of its low-cost clean energy.
It should come as no surprise that California, America’s most energy-efficient state, also possesses its strongest economy.
The US has far more accessible energy than does Sweden or Iceland. North Dakota, Kansas and Texas have sufficient harnessable wind energy to supply all the nation’s energy needs, including transportation needs.
The US is second only to Iceland in available geothermal energy and 19% of the most desolate southwestern deserts would supply all our energy needs from solar power which would include a complete change over to plug in electric cars.
The obstacles to freeing ourselves from our ruinous dependence on carbon fuels and the strangle hold on our economy can be overcome by a President and Congress that have the foresight, wisdom and courage to act deliberately and urgently.
In America, several obstacles impede the kind of entrepreneurial revolution we need. To begin with, a trillion dollars in annual coal-and-oil subsidies gives the carbon industry a decisive market advantage. Meanwhile, an overstressed and inefficient national electrical grid can’t accommodate new kinds of power. At the same time, a byzantine array of local rules impede access by innovators to national markets.
The current, decrepit state of our national electrical grid (as with our highways and bridges) needs urgent attention, without which, new energy sources can not be made available no matter how efficient those systems are.
push to revamp the nation’s antiquated high-voltage power-transmission system so that it can deliver solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable misaligned. The biggest renewable-energy opportunities.... are outside the grids’ reach. Furthermore, traveling via alternating-current (A.C.) lines, too much ...energy would dissipate before it crossed the country. The nation urgently needs more investment in its backbone transmission grid, including new direct-current (D.C.) power lines for efficient long-haul transmission. ...we need to build in "smart" features, including storage points and computerized management overlays, allowing the new grid to intelligently deploy the energy along the way. Construction of this new grid will create a marketplace where utilities, established businesses, and entrepreneurs can sell energy and efficiency.
The other obstacle is the web of arcane and conflicting state regulations ...The federal government needs to work with state authorities to open up the grids, allowing clean-energy innovators to fairly compete for investment, space, and customers. We need open markets where hundreds of local and national power producers can scramble to deliver economic and environmental solutions at the lowest possible price. The energy sector, in other words, state rules that currently restrict access to the grid. needs an initiative analogous to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which required open access to all the nation’s telephone lines. Marketplace competition among national and local phone companies instantly precipitated the historic explosion in telecom activity.
The cost of a renewed, efficient grid will be expensive but the subsidies given to the energy companies in one year would pay the cost – and the benefits will be huge. Further, it might be accomplished without a dime of public money.
Construction of efficient and open-transmission marketplaces ... trillion dollars over the next 15 years. For roughly a third of the projected cost of the Iraq war we could wean the country from carbon. And the good news is that the government doesn’t actually have to pay for all of this. If the president works with governors to lift constraints and encourage investment, utilities and private entrepreneurs will quickly step in to revitalize the grid and recover their investment through royalties collected for transporting green electrons. Businesses and homes will become power plants as individuals cash in by installing solar panels and wind turbines on their buildings, and by selling the stored energy in their plug-in hybrids back to the grid at peak hours. .
This transformation can be accomplished with current proven technology, as well as with technologies not mentioned such as, Tidal Energy, Wave Energy, Ocean Current Energy and Ocean Thermal Gradient Energy. A new, "smart" electrical grid will use all energy sources with seamlessly integration, a minimum transmission loss and security against wide spread system brown outs and black outs..
With proper incentives and open opportunity, new, more efficient technologies and innovations will surely blossom as they did in the communication industries.
It can dramatically improve our trade deficit, Clean our air and reduce respiratory diseases, return our farms to the job of growing food, make a major, positive, impact on mediating global climate change, create millions of new, well paying, jobs and remove any incentive for us to become militarily involved with unstable countries and dictatorial governments over the issue of energy.