Our Socialized Energy System
- From: "ww" <lbt006@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 10 Aug 2005 15:19:20 -0700
Communist Agent Constantine Spyders would surely love this system!
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Our Socialized Energy System
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050729/our_socialized_energy_system.php
Our Socialized Energy System
Ok, so let me get this straight. Our energy system is 96 percent
dependent on coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear; coal and oil are the
main drivers of climate change; nuclear energy is the main contributor
to WMD proliferation; natural gas terminals are prime terrorist targets
and we're building more near cities; the oil industry has not built a
new refinery for 30 years but energy companies, like Exxon, are
reporting record profits-and Congress just gave all four industries
close to $15 billion in subsidies.
Now, I'm the first one to acknowledge that it is the government that
allows markets to function properly. Government enforces contracts.
Government establishes measures, harmonizes standards, and provides
essential market infrastructure, like roads, communications spectrum
and ports. Government also ensures that the processes of commerce do
not impose costs on people who are not primary parties to commercial
transactions.
That last point is essential and yet has been twisted and distorted
over the last 50 years. America's zoning laws emerged out of
progressive activism at the turn of the century, when early industrial
factories were massive sources of pollution and it was essential to
separate residential areas from industrial areas. The same applied to
power plants and fuel refineries. Given the technology of the day,
keeping these massive pollution sources away from residential areas was
important.
But today, advanced technology, the failures of suburbia, rising global
energy demand and climate change have systematically undermined the
logic that supports our energy system. Nevertheless, Congress just
spent $15 billion on reinforcing that system and the results will be
bad for our economy, our ecosystem, and our security.
Look at power generation. If our national interest is to reduce energy
consumption, increase quality of life and provide sustainable,
well-paying jobs, we should be decentralizing our power grid, not
building massive new coal and nuclear plants. Decentralized power
generation would reduce transmission load on our fragile grid, allow
incremental, on-demand capacity increases with the latest and most
efficient technology, would create an enormous market in high-tech
generation and power management equipment, and reduce our vulnerability
to disruption by distributing our generation assets.
Instead, we just opened the door to massive subsidies for nuclear
energy. Nuclear power plants are so expensive that a normal market will
not invest in them, so they need government subsidies. They are so
dangerous normal insurance companies will not take on the risk, so they
need government-guaranteed insurance. And they are so much of a risk to
local communities that they need the federal government to force
through permits on local governments. All that, and because these new
plants will be far from their customers, more than 30 percent of the
power they generate will be lost in transmission. Subsidized,
inefficient and hazardous.
And then there is the provision in the energy bill that stipulates that
only the first 60,000 hybrids from any one company will receive a tax
break from the government. Now remember, government is supposed to
ensure that the commercial or personal activity of one person does not
impose costs on others. Hybrid engines, by reducing emissions and
energy imports, do this marvelously. This new provision, however,
reverses that. The government should be encouraging as many people as
possible to drive hybrid cars, but instead Congress just capped the
number of tax breaks, and therefore capped the market, at 60,000 units.
It is absurd.
Taken together, these two examples resemble most the folly of
centralized economic planning that sank the Soviet Union 15 years ago.
Government involvement in the energy marketplace is now more about
preserving the energy status quo for as long as possible. Unfortunately
for taxpayers, consumers and citizens, that means that instead of
gradual, market-led adaptation of our energy markets, we will have to
wait until a major economic shock hits.
Think of it as yet another economic bubble. But this one is filled with
gasoline.
--Patrick Doherty | Friday 11:09 AM
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