Here's how you solve both: The United States initiates a true self sufficiency program with regards to energy. Something on the scale of the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. They ended up spending $116 Billion dollars laying out the highways which in todays dollars is equal to about $833 Billion dollars. Not chump change.
The good news is my proposed solution already has the infrastructure almost started.
What we do:
The government MASSIVELY starts subsidizing any alternative energy source that gets us off of foreign oil. Bio-diesel, solar, wind, ethanol, you get the point. The emphasis should be on upgrading existing systems, not putting new systems in place, like a hydrogen economy would need.
How would they subsidize it? The subsidies would pay for solar and wind installations costs over and above what it would cost for them to install petroleum consuming resourses. Including, half of the cost of solar panels that the typical homeowner could install on his home to power up. Make it a no brainer to take your house off of the electrical grid. More specifically, a no painer.
The political results would be interesting and rapid:
First, we would lose almost all interest in what happens in the Middle East. The only thing we would have left to defend there is our interest in Israel. (Which I'm afraid would also deminish in proportion to our dependancy on the oil reserves of their neighbors.)
Second, oil countries would have to change their welfare state structure because they wouldn't be getting so much of their funding directly from the gas pumps of America.
Third, America would once again be creating resourses rather than consuming them. No one ever built strength by only consuming. You must CREATE resourses. Mine them, grow them, generate them, whatever. Wealth does not ever flow away from resources. It flows to them.
Yes, this is a kind of econmic warfare, but if we don't do it now, we aren't going to be left with the choice. Eventually the warfare will be even more real than Iraq. It will involve the entire region and could spread to other oil producing states.
The lines are now open for your critisisms.
And now for something totally different:
I don't know if I can keep watching American Idol now that Lakisha is gone.
4 comments:
Sounds good to me, but what do I know!
Hope y'all had a great Mama's Day!
Pat,
you're a genius! You should run for office. NO wait, I like you way too much to wish that on you.
Bro,
Who am I to let you down... Nay-say, Nay-say, Nay-say... Your plan has a lot of merrit, but I will never swollow a pill and say that the government is the answer to any problem. I hate to have the federal government role out yet another project that you know will not be done efficiently. How are you proposing paying for this thing?
My other concern is that the things you talk about don't really match problem for problem. The bulk of the oil consumed is not going to electricity generation (<5%), it goes into transportation and industry, so all the solar, wind, and nuclear power won't get us off foreign oil unless we roll out electric vehicles as well. You talk of ethanol and bio-diesel, firstly, have you got an extra state? Because we would need to put a state the size of Kansas under cultivation for corn just to meet Bush's goal on ethanol let alone the scale of project you are referencing. Secondly, ethanol and bio-diesel still emit greenhouse gases when combusted, ok, not as much but still...
Until you are willing to turn (subsidize) a carbonless solution across the board (vehicles included), you massive plans will not solve either problem or achieve either goal...
I do think there is something the government can do by way of more and larger tax incentives (no new programs, just less revenue for them to spend poorly) on alternative energy, conservation, and efficiency. But unless they start pushing electric solutions that don't rely on coal for transportation, neither of your stated goals will be achieved. You keep dreaming though, you are headed in the right direction.
FYI, most people don't realize that the US is the third largest producer of Oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We produce roughly 40-45% of our needs. We could actually pass both of them, at least in the short term, if we opened ANWR and CA/FL coastal drilling... Also, our largest importer is Canada, not some middle eastern country and Canada has the largest reserves in the world, if we could just get it out of the oil sands cheeper. Now that is a project I would be willing to subsidize...
I have thought about this. I realize that only 5% of our oil consumption goes to electricity generation.
Here's how a free market works. The cheapest good of acceptable value gets used. My plan, to generate abundant energy across the nation within the existing infrastructure would create market conditions that would incentivise everyone to find electrical alternatives to their existing gas/oil/diesel chugging vehicles.
I agree that government isn't an attractive first choice. The problem that exists with solar energy is that in a free market solar energy isn't competitive. It is a superior good that is considered a luxury, not a necessity. If the government were to step in and begin subsidizing the solar infrastructure, the economies of scale would take over and the superior good, solar energy, would be a no brainer choice for anyone that doesn't like paying three dollars a gallon at the pump.
By the way, if you have a plug in electric vehicle (even a hybrid plug in) and you are creating your own electricity. Your rate of return on your solar cell investment is more than cut in half (depending on what size vehicle you need to drive of course.) You're not just saving money on your electricity bill.
There is actually another cheaper way to incentivise the change to an electrical society. Legislate zero emmission vehicles. The problem this creates is it shifts the production burden to an already stretched infrastructure. My solar cell plan would greatly relieve the infrastructure by producing the electricity at or close to where it is generated.
I personally think that the best path to energy independence should involve both the subsidies and the legislation.
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