I did not get to watch the first debate of the Democratic candidates for president, but I have seen some coverage of it. The Wall Street Journal’s Energy Roundup had a write-up on it a couple of days ago:
Leavin’ on Eight Jet Planes…
From the coverage I have seen, the answers to questions on energy and the environment were underwhelming. Let’s look at what they did say, and what I wish they would have said.
One good answer that I read was by John Edwards, when asked why gas prices are still rising:
Edwards noted the “extraordinary demand” in the U.S. for gasoline and took the opportunity to state his plan for dealing with climate change. “[W]e ought to cap carbon emissions in the United States. We ought to invest in clean, alternative sources of energy. We ought to invest in carbon sequestration technology, clean-coal technology, a billion dollars at least into making sure we build the most fuel-efficient vehicles on the planet. And we ought to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war; to be willing to conserve,” he said.
He is correct to note that demand has been extraordinary (despite the high prices) and that we have to get serious about conservation. I just hope he is installing solar panels on his 28,000 square foot mansion.
I thought Biden’s take was disappointing:
Later, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden was asked whether he would require anything “hard” of the American public to fight global warming. “We have to make…the equivalent of…a Manhattan Project,” he replied. But his specific proposals were less revolutionary — capping emissions; requiring that only flex-fuel vehicles be made and sold in the U.S.; requiring 10% of gas station inventory to be E-85 ethanol; funding research on lithium-battery technology.
My biggest disappointment, probably because my expectations were highest, were of Obama’s answers:
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was asked what he did in his personal life to help the environment. He said he organized people to plant trees on Earth Day. Pressed for a more personal contribution, he said he was teaching his daughters to install energy-saving light bulbs. He then abruptly changed the conversation to revisit an earlier question about terrorism, and that was the end of the debate about energy.
I didn’t read any accounts of Hillary Clinton answering any environmental or energy questions, so I can’t comment there. But the answers to the questions I did see asked were lame for the most part. The question I would really like to see them all answer is “If every American – in their personal life – used as much energy as you do, would the United States use more or less energy than it does now?”
The Right Answer
Here is how I want to see a presidential candidate answer a question on energy and the environment (and mean it):
“In my household, every day is Earth Day. I am mindful of the energy that I use, and the impact this has on the environment. I have taken a number of steps to reduce my environmental footprint. I am committed to walking the talk.
I take public transportation at every opportunity. I drive a fuel-efficient car, and I car pool. I walk and bike to destinations whenever possible. I live in a modest, fuel-efficient house, and I have installed CFLs throughout my home and office. I choose products that don’t contain excess plastic packaging, and I recycle everything I can. I am teaching my children the importance of conservation, and that we as Americans do not have an entitlement to 25% of the world’s oil.
The time has come to engage in a very frank discussion on our energy policies. Reducing our energy usage will require sacrifice, but the kind of sacrifice that involves not lives lost in the Middle East, but rather more efficient usage of our resources. I am talking about the kind of sacrifice we see in Europe, where per capita energy consumption is half that of the U.S. Yet despite this “sacrifice”, Europeans maintain a high standard of living.
I will ask that all Americans accept personal responsibility for our own energy consumption. It is time to shed the belief that we are going to avoid any sacrifices, because we are not going to run this country on ethanol or biodiesel. It simply can’t be done at our current level of energy usage. In the U.S. we currently import 10 million barrels of crude oil a day. That is over 12 barrels of oil imported each year for every man, woman, and child in this country. As your president I am going to pursue policies that will – as a first step – bring our energy consumption more in line with that of the EU. By doing this, we have a realistic chance of reaching energy independence (for now). We owe this to our soldiers risking their lives in Iraq.
Understand that there is no free lunch: These policies are going to increase the cost of your energy. I am going to mitigate this by lowering your income tax rate. This is intended to ease the burden of higher energy costs, while encouraging everyone to become more energy efficient. The intent is not to increase net tax revenues, but rather to discourage excessive consumption. This is the only viable solution I see to the problem at present, and I know that most Americans will accept this sacrifice to avoid more sacrifice of lives to protect our foreign oil interests.”
——————
Then, after the thunderous applause dies down, I thank them for their attention.
But the sad thing is that the average U.S. citizen is so averse to paying more for energy, all they will take away from this is “My gas taxes will be raised if I elect this person.” So, maybe you delay that conversation on raising energy prices. But at the very least I want a candidate who walks the talk, and can tell us that if all Americans used oil as they do, there would be no more oil imports. I am looking for someone less like the status quo, who displays the kind of environmental stewardship of someone like Ed Begley, Jr.
Robert,
I don’t think Americans are averse to conserving energy: they just keeping hearing that it won’t be necessary. After 9/11 I think many Americans were looking for ways to help the country – one hear of many young people who decided to join the military. But really, everybody was looking for a way to help.
Here’s what the Bush administration told them: Go shopping and pretend nothing happened. I think history will judge GWB harshly for missing a golden opportunity: he should have pointed out that much of our oil purchases end up funding Islamic terrorists and that conservation could potentially make a serious dent in the funds available to those who would hurt us.
The line is still available to any candidate who wants to use it. It is a bit depressing that none has done so yet.
I can’t get too excited about your ideas to tax the country to where it needs to go – not with the pigs-at-the-trough mentality we see in Congress. I would rather go for laying the facts on the table, encouraging people to conserve, start pushing legislation that would further encourage conservation. That way the idea would build momentum, rather than the resistance that a new tax would generate.
I also worry about the government’s propensity to spend $1.10 for every $1 it take in (pigs at the trough, indeed). Still, encouraging people to conserve hasn’t been working, whereas taxation manifestly has (in Europe and Japan).
Everyone can see which way energy prices are heading. The right question to ask Joe Average isn’t whether he’d be willing to pay $2/gallon to stop global warming: the right question is, would he rather pay $2/gallon to fund alternative energy now, or pay $2/gallon to fund middle-eastern regimes tomorrow?
Bah! Run in Canada, throw out NAFTA and slap a huge export tariff on oil, NG and NH3 going to the US. That would be a great way to bring out the true EROEI of corn ethanol when cheap diesel and nitrogen fertilizer from Canada quit flowing into Iowa. It would probably make the winters a little chilly in Montana.
(this was intended to be a joke)
Except after I read it, it’s kind of a serious point. Jeff Vail – Geopolitical Feedback Loops goes into this. It won’t happen from Canada, but it’s not that unlikely from other areas. I don’t think I left any WMD in the back shed, but I better go doublecheck… 🙂
Still, encouraging people to conserve hasn’t been working, whereas taxation manifestly has (in Europe and Japan).
My thoughts exactly. Price is the only handle that has been demonstrated to work. Look at Canada versus Europe. Their social and environmental views are similar in many ways, yet Canada uses a level of fossil fuels consistent with that of the U.S. Why? Because gas is relatively inexpensive there compared to Europe. Price is the only handle that will ever get people to conserve in large numbers.
Cheers, Robert
Still, encouraging people to conserve hasn’t been working, whereas taxation manifestly has (in Europe and Japan).
Maybe I blinked, but I don’t recall anyone encouraging people to conserve. Dick Cheney dismissed conservation as “a personal virtue”, but you can almost imagine him adding “…for you green wackjobs”.
The bully pulpit of POTUS is significant: just witness how excited the lemmings are about cellulosic ethanol.
I think Robert McKie, science editor of The Guardian, has part of a point when he says here, of the stratospheric ozone issue, that “The crisis was contained at an industrial, not a consumer, level, as it should be with greenhouse gases.” (My emphasis.)
I think most Americans are expecting this to be solved “at an industrial level”, i.e. in a manner more or less transparent to them. At a more cynical level, it’s easy to gleefully thump on corporations, but it’s not so easy to ask, for example, “Is my trip necessary?” – to which the answer, more often than not is “no”, even on a reasonably expansive definition of “necessary.”
The problem with “selling” the idea of higher fuel taxes offsetting income or social-security taxes is that people don’t generally have a good idea how they would fair under the proposed system. Put up a website where people can type in their zip code, electric bill, gas bill, and gasoline gallons consumed and get a cost increase figure of the new energy taxes. Then have a website where you type in a few numbers from your income tax forms and get a cost figure on how much you would save on income taxes.
Democrats will be the WORST politicians for addressing global warming and energy independence. Why?
Everything the Democrat candidates mention are useless boondoggles or worse. capping carbon emissions is a recipe for shipping our industrial base to china and mexico where they wont be thusly taxed. A recipe for disaster.
Ethanol, hydrogen, solar, biofuels, and socalled clean coal (oxymoron?), are all boondoggles. There is one source of energy that is ZERO CO2 emissions, cost-effective environmentally sound (zero pollution, small waste stream), AND already powers 20% of our electricity generation – Nuclear energy.
Instead we should simply do this: Build 400 nuclear power plants and increase our nuclear based electricity generating capacity to about 70% of baseload generation. CO2 emissions will be cut almost in half.
The #1 cure for global warming is nuclear energy and yet the Democrats have been preventing moving forward with that. It took a Republican Congress and President to pass an energy bill that moves us toward expanding nuclear energy for the first time in decades. Gore preaches on global warming yet wont mention nuclear energy. Hypocrisy, stupidity, or a blind spot? Fact is, the biggest threat to the environment may be the anti-nuclear environmentalists!
And the statements about taxation being the only way to change demand are correct. If tax-loving Democrats (who in Congress are all set to slap Americans with $1 trillion tax increase with their refusal to extend Bush’s tax cuts) cant even get themselves to support higher gas taxes, it shows how unserious they are about the ‘serious’ global warming issue.
BTw, Cheney was right about conservation not adding up to much. if you look at the numbers, you realize that GDP/joule has *always* increased over time, that conservation is happening *already* and that jawboning more wont add up to a hill of beans. Rational economic behavior is what its about, and if conservation is economical, it happens; if not, it doesnt happen. Spending billions of taxpayer funds to make energy conservation happen is foolish if those funds could be more productively used advancign technology. In and of itself, there is no merit in ‘lower energy use’, only in comparison to costs/benefits can it be considered.
Thus, it is better to have taxation to reflect societal cost if its not already part of economic costing, and let individuals make energy consumption tradeoffs on that basis. It is simply a myth that we ‘overconsume’ energy. that is akin to saying we overbreathe air. Rather, we should ask what amount effectiveness and efficiency we get out of energy consumption versus what negative impacts, and go from there.
“he should have pointed out that much of our oil purchases end up funding Islamic terrorists” Actually that is popular nonsense. Bin Laden has no oil money, neither did the taliban, and boxcutters dont cost that much. Oil money ends up getting recycled into our stock market…
nevertheless, its time to stop feeding OPEC and tax the stream ourselves.
We should also open up ANWR and all the other domestic sources of oil including offshore and oil shale, and at the same time increase oil taxes/tariffs to dmap demand. The shock to the oil system would send crude back down to $30 on world market, while the US government picks up the difference.
“I think most Americans are expecting this to be solved “at an industrial level”, i.e. in a manner more or less transparent to them.”
Global warming CAN be – as 40% of emissions happen at power plants and we only need a 40% reduction to significantly alter the projections for the planet.
A win/win as we move into a energy complex that in 20 years is built on nuclear, plug-in hybrids and electrics for transport, alternate bio-fuels, high efficiency high effectiveness per Joule economy.
Nice rant, Freedom. I guess you forgot to blame the liberal press. No doubt you can shortly correct that oversight.
There is one source of energy that is ZERO CO2 emissions, cost-effective environmentally sound (zero pollution, small waste stream), AND already powers 20% of our electricity generation – Nuclear energy.
Perhaps you should work on convincing NV how small that waste stream is. Or better yet, will you store it (temporarily, of course) in your garage, while we find someone to take it long term?
“he should have pointed out that much of our oil purchases end up funding Islamic terrorists” Actually that is popular nonsense. Bin Laden has no oil money, neither did the taliban, and boxcutters dont cost that much. Oil money ends up getting recycled into our stock market…
OK, genius, enlighten us: where does al-Qaeda get its funds from? I thought a big part of it was Saudi oil profits, sent by rich Islamists via “charitable” donations to “deserving” causes. But perhaps you can set me straight. Explain to me where the rich Islamists would be that fund al-Qaeda, but don’t get their money from oil. “Popular nonsense?” In your head, perhaps.
“Box cutters don’t cost that much?” LOL! Do you know anything about terrorism?
It is simply a myth that we ‘overconsume’ energy. that is akin to saying we overbreathe air.
RIGHT! The US uses 25% of the world’s crude oil production. We have ~5% of the world’s population. Granted those figures get distorted by the fact that there are some huge and poor countries out there where people don’t have a choice, they can’t afford oil.
As Robert has pointed out numerous times, the average European uses half as much oil as the average American, and enjoy a comparable standard of living. So let’s just say there is a lot of room for improvement in this area.
BTw, Cheney was right about conservation not adding up to much.
Cheney was right about anything? That’s great news.
Perhaps, if we had some leadership in Washington (from either party), they would ask us to tighten our belts somewhat and conserve some oil. This would reduce demand, lower oil prices and send less money to our enemies. It can also be done without destroying the US economy as some weaker personalities have suggested.
“There is one source of energy that is ZERO CO2 emissions, cost-effective environmentally sound (zero pollution, small waste stream), AND already powers 20% of our electricity generation – Nuclear energy.”
“Perhaps you should work on convincing NV how small that waste stream is. “
It’s simply a fact that the waste stream from nuclear power is about 10,000 times less than the waste stream from coal plants, the yearly waste stream for the whole USA could fit on a single football field, and that nuclear power generation has much less radioactive emissions (ie zero) than coal. It’s simply a fact that used nuclear fuel’s radiation is reduced by about 4-5 orders of magnitude after 100 years, to the point where in 300 years it is no more radioactive than natural ores; that used nuclear fuel could be recycled further to reduce the waste stream by another factor of about 60; if we wanted we could have a completely ‘closed’ nuclear fuel cycle that eliminates all waste except fission byproducts (which have half-lifes of 30 years or less), by reusing all the actinide components (which can be used as fuel) in ‘actinide burning’ nuclear power plants. Nuclear spent fuel (aka nuclear waste) is a non-issue, as there are a number of perfectly safe and environmentally sound ways to deal with it, only one of which is sticking it all in a remote mountain in Nevada.
“Or better yet, will you store it (temporarily, of course) in your garage, while we find someone to take it long term?”
I would certainly be willing to engage in a business where I stored nuclear used fuel casks on property I owned, as they are quite safe, but of course NRC rules are quite stringent and licensing procedure hurdles very high, for the public’s good. There is a Utah Indian tribe that was trying to get into the nuclear storage business, which would a be good idea for some very rural community. Most ‘nuclear waste’ is today safely and securely kept on site at nuclear power plants for decades, while it ‘cools down’.
After 30 years of safe operation in the USA and most other western nations, and with safer and simpler plant designs available for next-generation build-out, nuclear power is ready to be the workhorse supplier of energy in the 21st century and end both the oil&coal age and the threat of global warming. Why not embrace it as part of our post-fossil-fuel future?
“It is simply a myth that we ‘overconsume’ energy. that is akin to saying we overbreathe air.”
“RIGHT! The US uses 25% of the world’s crude oil production. We have ~5% of the world’s population. Granted those figures get distorted by the fact that there are some huge and poor countries out there where people don’t have a choice, they can’t afford oil.”
The fact that we use more oil than the rest of the world is in some ways not much more meaningful than a statistic that shows how we have more than 25% of the world’s golf courses and personal computers or make more than 25% of the world’s long-distance calls. We have a high standard of living and high consumption vis a vis others, but would that mean we have “too many” PCs or ‘too many” long-distance calls?
“As Robert has pointed out numerous times, the average European uses half as much oil as the average American, and enjoy a comparable standard of living.”
I can certainly agree that a key metric is GDP/energy, ie ‘energy density’, but USA today is more energy efficient than it was 40 years ago. We use less oil per household today than in 1975. And during the Bush years we improved our energy density, while countries like Spain and others in Europe moved in the opposite direction. The US standard of living on many metrics is higher than Europe, as we live in bigger houses on more land, do more things, etc. It doesn’t make Europe “better” to be based on different transport and lifestyle configurations.
Or consider this example: Two businesses, both with the same level of sales and profits, but one has 100 times the energy consumption of the other. Are they doing something wrong? Not if that business is an aluminum smelter, and other business is a software company.
” So let’s just say there is a lot of room for improvement in this area.”
You say ‘improvement’ but that is just begging the question. What is there to ‘improve’? I am trying to point out that it is not “ENERGY consumption” that is too high, but consumption of *certain kinds* of energy that may have negative effects; thus, *displacing* oil energy use with other form of energy would just as (if not more) valid as a solution to ‘reduce energy’. The point at which higher energy efficiency is no longer cost-effective is also the point at which it probably becomes environmentally ineffective. eg we now replaced our incandescents with plug in flourescents. But we are not using $100 LED lights, complete waste of money in pursuit of minor efficiency gain. So let the market work when it comes to conservation.
“BTw, Cheney was right about conservation not adding up to much.
Cheney was right about anything? That’s great news.”
Yes, great news that could save us from bad policy decisions if we analyze it rigorously. Example: here in our city the mayor wants us to cut CO2 use, so he proposes some draconian requirements to reduce energy consumption in buildings. But even “draconian” can only do so much in buildings that are already built. Yet our city is fed mainly by two power plants – one is a coal plant and one is a nuclear power plant (also some nat gas peakers but those are baseload). Conserving energy that comes from a coal/nuke plant mix will *never* cut CO2 emissions to zero, it will only expand the GDP/Joule ratio. It’s impact on CO2 emissions is small. Conservation has a 5-10% impact, which will certainly get swamped by increased demand from other effects (eg immigration).
But if we replaced the coal plant with a nuclear plant we could get a 99.999% reduction in CO2 emissions from baseload generation. Total citywide emissions would drop by almost 40%. The cost would be far less in terms of needed incentives than what conservation and caps would deliver for equivalent CO2 reduction.
What we REALLY need to do is reduce the Joule/CO2-emissions ratio and do it by replacing our number 1 source of CO2 – coal plants.
99.999% reduction is more significant than 5-20%, and our energy density has been improving every year for decades, yet energy consumption as a whole does not go down. Thus, Cheney was indeed correct to say that ‘conservation is not a sufficient basis for an energy policy’. In fact, his statement is a pretty obvious one – of COURSE we need both supply and demand policies, etc.
Or to put it another way:
City A has only coal plants and has politicians urging conservation on TV nightly.
City B has only nuclear plants and has no politicians urging conservation.
Which will have lower CO2 emissions?
“Perhaps, if we had some leadership in Washington (from either party), they would ask us to tighten our belts somewhat and conserve some oil.”
Jawboning and meaningless posturing won’t do squat, as pointed out earlier, and to pretend it would matter is to buy into a fairy tale view of behavior. What will get people to stop using more oil is heavy taxation of it so it costs more and demand drops. People will only respond when it hits them in their wallet. Consider that maybe Europe’s higher taxes on gasoline is one contributor to their lower per capita use of same. Incentives matter!
It’s simply a fact that…
You rattle of a long list of “facts” – do you have a reference on any of these? And also, you have any cost data for nuclear power plants, compared to coal?
After 30 years of safe operation in the USA and most other western nations, and with safer and simpler plant designs available for next-generation build-out, nuclear power is ready to be the workhorse supplier of energy in the 21st century and end both the oil&coal age and the threat of global warming. Why not embrace it as part of our post-fossil-fuel future?
What about human nature? As the Cernobyl incident proved, there is no such thing as a “fail safe” design. As long as you have people involved at any level, you have the potential for accidents. And nuclear accidents are so much more spectacular than any other kind…
Conservation has a 5-10% impact, which will certainly get swamped by increased demand from other effects (eg immigration).
Now that’s pure BS! Conservation can do far more than 10%, with apologies to Mr. Cheney. And let’s not stir immigration into the mix, just yet…
People will only respond when it hits them in their wallet.
As pointed out elsewhere in this blog, people are not really responding to $3/gal anymore – demand is at record levels.
You view people as cold and rational, as economists tend to do. In reality people are (luckily) not that selfish. People are usually willing to make some sacrfices for the greater good.
The Bush administration missed an opportunity after 9/11 to tell people to conserve oil, and hit our enemies in the wallet.
“You rattle of a long list of “facts” – do you have a reference on any of these?”
Yes, it’s called reality. Give google a try and you’ll find that all these points have multiple references, but you can try the NEI.org website for a primer on nuclear power basics – costs, how much waste, safety metrics, etc. For example, a rundown on the ‘nuclear waste’ ie used nuclear fuel questions:
http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=1&catid=14
Good stats also on Prof. John McCarthy’s (famous AI guru) website on nuclear energy, give it a try:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html
eg “The basic energy fact is that the fission of an atom of uranium produces 10 million times the energy produced by the combustion of an atom of carbon from coal.”
“And also, you have any cost data for nuclear power plants, compared to coal?”
Good question. Nuclear power has lower operating costs of any fuel source, bar none. This is because fuel costs are lower. Nuclear energy’s main cost is the capital for plant construction. The main reason some nuclear power plants cost so much in the early build-out era of 1970s and 1980s was that regulations were a moving target and in some cases utilities couldnt manage construction well. Both problems have been solved, and you can expect to build new nuclear plants at $1500-$1800/KW rated. Nuclear is definitely cheaper than natural gas overall now, and about the same as coal. If we taxed carbon ie, taxed coal use, nuclear would *definitely* become our cheapest form of electricity generation.
“Why not embrace it as part of our post-fossil-fuel future?”
“What about human nature? As the Cernobyl incident proved, there is no such thing as a “fail safe” design.”
Chernobyl only proved that Stalin-era Russian technology combined with a culture in the USSR that had little regard for human life could lead to bad things happening. The USSR plants lacked basic safety measures that are in all US plants – containment vessels, negative temperature coefficients in the reactor, and multiple backup systems. Chernobyl lacked all of those. It proved nothing about western civilian nuclear power, where the ‘worst’ accident in the US in 40 years, TMI, led to zero loss of life. TMI in fact proved that American safety systems *worked* since the TMI containment vessel contained a nasty meltdown inside the reactor.
“And nuclear accidents are so much more spectacular than any other kind…”
Not really. bhopal was worse than chernobyl. In the interim since the zero-loss-of-life TMI event in 1979, there have been zero US reactor metldowns or anything even close to that. There also was however Exxon Valdez environmental disaster, multiple refinery explosions that killed many people, and coal mine accidents like the sago mine disaster. That’s just the US. In China where standards are lower, hundreds of coal workers have lost their lives in recent decades.
Make no bones – without nuclear, we are sticking with coal. we cannot afford the $7 trillion or so it would take to build out exotic alternatives like solar, and we wont have the natural gas either.
I find it fascinating and a bit disturbing that we are told of the disaster that awaits from oil depletion, from global warming, from pollution, from funding oil dictatorships, yet when a clean, cost-effective, environmentally sounds solution is proposed, there is no sigh of relief, but sundry red herrings thrown in the way. NO energy source will be perfect, but consider the question – which energy source is BETTER than other choices – on economics, safety and CO2 emissions – and nuclear comes out on top.
As for your comment on conservation. Yes, on the micro scale you can to better than 10% with efficiency etc. (eg 4X one-time efficiency gain with flourescent bulb). But my point is that conservation is *already* done to the extent economically useful, thus increased conservation beyond that point will only impact energy use at the margin. The immigration/population increase point is just to point out that even if our use/person decreases, total use could still rise. the bottom line is that while conservation is helpful, it’s not enough – society as a whole in the US will still need large amounts of energy.
“People will only respond when it hits
them in the wallet”
“You view people as cold and rational, as economists tend to do. In reality people are (luckily) not that selfish. People are usually willing to make some sacrfices for the greater good.”
This is a mis-statement of what I and economists both believe. We like to view people *AS THEY ARE*. I suggest you read up on Von Mises “Human Action”, where in one chapter he explains that it matters not whether the underlying goal is altruism or ‘selfishness’, people respond to incentives in the pursuit of goals. Even nuns can be savvy shoppers for example. Plenty of economists can cite chapter and verse on responses to incentives. At $3/gal that is not much more in terms of cost as percentage of GDP than 25 years ago, so maye $3/gal isn’t enough disincentive. But I DO notice that April car and truck sales are down, similar to what happened in late 2005 on high gas prices.
Also – How can you connect ‘sacrifices’ with ‘greater good’ in this situation? Someone does something against their own happiness and the sum total of happiness increases? Not really, since the marginal benefit of a literal drop in an ocean use of energy to rest of us is miniscule.
And if you do postulate a societal harm that’s significant enough, why not quantify it via taxation? The Bush administration advocated and put in place extended tax credits for buying high-efficiency cars such as hybrids.
they have encouraged other conservation methods via subsidies, credits, leaving aside the whole ethanol subsidy (which imho is a boondoggle, but there ya go). The billions spent during the Bush administrion in alternative energy research funding, subsidies and tax credits for energy efficiency are changing behaviors far beyond what a politician’s speech would.
Freedom,
Thanks for the references: I have some homework to do.
My understanding of Chernobyl is that a number of safety mechanisms were bypassed because somebody wanted to see what would happen if… Can a good design get you around that? I’m not convinced.
I find it fascinating and a bit disturbing that we are told of the disaster that awaits from oil depletion, from global warming, from pollution, from funding oil dictatorships, yet when a clean, cost-effective, environmentally sounds solution is proposed, there is no sigh of relief, but sundry red herrings thrown in the way.
Agreed. I guess I need further convincing that nuclear waste is as benign as you suggest. And as safe. Not trying to be a doomer (too many of those around, already), believe me!
The immigration/population increase point is just to point out that even if our use/person decreases, total use could still rise.
Not sure you can say that. Look at what has been happening with water consumption in the US: Nation’s water use stable since mid-1980s. Sure, conserving energy is probably more challenging, but let’s not say it can’t be done.
the bottom line is that while conservation is helpful, it’s not enough – society as a whole in the US will still need large amounts of energy.
Sure. But if the situation is anywhere as dire as some would have us believe, any bit is going to help.
Also – How can you connect ‘sacrifices’ with ‘greater good’ in this situation? Someone does something against their own happiness and the sum total of happiness increases? Not really, since the marginal benefit of a literal drop in an ocean use of energy to rest of us is miniscule.
Don’t be daft. We are not talking about the president convincing two or three people to conserve – we are being a bit more ambitious than that. To the tune that oil imports drop significantly, leading to lower oil prices, leading to lower gas prices, leading to happiness for all.
The Bush administration advocated and put in place extended tax credits for buying high-efficiency cars such as hybrids. they have encouraged other conservation methods via subsidies, credits, leaving aside the whole ethanol subsidy (which imho is a boondoggle, but there ya go). The billions spent during the Bush administrion in alternative energy research funding, subsidies and tax credits for energy efficiency are changing behaviors far beyond what a politician’s speech would.
I would argue the opposite: that the billions that the Bush administration is spending comes with the assurance that business-as-usual can be maintained. They are certainly not trying to change anyone’s behaviour.
You mention the corn ethanol boondoggle. I would extend that to any food-to-fuel scheme, including most industrial scale biodiesel plants. Much of it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem: we don’t need new fuels, we need feedstocks that can substitute for crude, and ideally for all other fossil fuels. So all the excitement about ethanol, hydrogen, biodiesel and other “fuels of the future” is temporary. It does not address the underlying question of where is the energy going to come from.
Optimist, I will leave you with this: It’s not that nuclear is risk-free or cost-free, but that compared with our alternatives, from noble-yet-very-costly to cheap-but-dirty, nuclear comes as a clearly superior form of energy for our future use. Many of the downsides to nuclear are much less than people assume or believe. So I encourage you to learn more and draw your own conclusions.