Guest Editorial published July 2, 2004 in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette "Commentary" Page
Title: U.S. Economy will soon depend on renewable energy
By Lance McKee
On June 23 I told a Worcester City Council committee why I think Worcester's
airport will one day be a wind farm. My talk was well reported in the
Telegram & Gazette
the next morning. In summary, US and world demand for crude oil and natural
gas are rising dramatically, yet US production is less each year (new Alaskan
oil wells will barely change that) and world production will peak soon. "Peaking" means
that every year there will be less oil than the year before, after a century
of almost continuous annual increases. Small airports will go out of business
as the price of aviation fuel rises. Cities and citizens will struggle
to meet their energy needs. Thus, a wind farm producing electricity for
5400
homes will have more value than a landing strip for a few private airplanes.
I encourage Telegram & Gazette readers to read "The End of Cheap
Oil," the cover story in the June 2004 National Geographic Magazine.
It explains "peak oil" in more detail than I can here. Then,
I hope, readers will look at the many books and web sites on this subject.
The Bush administration and Exxon/Mobil executives admit that we will
depend increasingly on foreign oil, a dependence that will contribute
about $110B
this year to our record high trade deficit. Some of the current books
on the topic predict oil wars that would make the current occupation
of Iraq
look like a picnic on Lake Quinsigamond and economic disasters that
would make 1970's "stagflation" -- caused by an OPEC oil
embargo -- look like a golden age. There will be inflation because
the price of food,
manufactured
goods and transportation is tied to the price of oil. There will be
recession because consumers, who have not been asked to pay for a
renewable energy
mandate (money that would stay in the US to build energy alternatives)
will, through their energy providers, pay much more to foreign oil
producers, and
pay more in taxes and blood to protect our access to that expensive
oil. Businesses will fail and people will be out of work.
Matthew Simmons, a respected Houston-based energy industry investment
banker, and a Republican, said last month: "Oil is far too cheap at the moment
[about $40 a barrel].... The figure I'd use is around $182 a barrel. … If
we price oil correctly it could give us time to find bridge fuels, fuels
to fill the gap between an oil economy and a renewable economy." Simmons
was a consultant to Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force. Read
his speeches at www.simmonsco-intl.com.
We need to get off fossil fuels. Here are some things I hope we and
our government will do:
1. Conserve! It hardly makes sense, does it? With the subsidies oil
companies get for exploring and producing, and with the support our
CIA and military
provide to despots who give us oil bargains while shortchanging their
people, "the
market" has made crude oil cheaper than bottled water, until now.
Nevertheless, the easiest, most cost-effective part of the solution
will be conservation.
2. Impose a steadily increasing sales tax on oil-derived fuels, natural
gas and coal to motivate conservation and to motivate investment in
sustainable energy products, services and new technologies. Proportionally
decrease
the
income tax paid by low-income and middle-income people, who will suffer
the most from rising fuel prices.
3. Provide incentives for sustainable energy research and market development.
Except under President Carter, these supports have historically been
negligible compared to subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy,
which should no
longer be subsidized.
4. Build a decentralized electric power system with a few large and
many medium and small producers. Create a multifaceted renewable energy
industry
and a digital real-time electricity market serving producers and users
who are mainly homeowners, farmers and small and medium sized businesses.
We
will all learn something about solar power, wind power, net metering,
combined heat and power, small scale hydrogen production and the price
of electricity.
We will innovate, export, and, along the way, begin to solve the global
warming problem. We will become a healthier people as we reduce harmful
emissions,
and a wiser and happier people as we take control of a critical part
of our lives that has been in the hands of big government and big energy
corporations
and utilities.
5. Be realistic about the continuing but gradually declining need for
fossil fuels and nuclear power. First hybrids, then fuel cells. First
combined heat
and power, then no-fuel alternatives. Before investing heavily in gasohol
and biodiesel, look at how much oil it takes to make these. We need
to be honest about life cycle costs and whole-system resource budgets.
But
beware
coal! It's abundant and the temptation to burn it will be strong, despite
the fact that 42 states and the EPA have issued health advisories warning
women and children not to eat much fish because it contains methyl
mercury that damages children's brains. Most of that mercury comes
from coal-fired
power plants. It accumulates. It doesn't break down like PCBs or smog.
Opponents of renewable energy dismiss renewable energy sources simply
because they currently produce less than 10% of our energy. They are
like a 1950s
vacuum tube expert dismissing transistors. We must look forward. Leaving
an economically bankrupt, energy poor and environmentally degraded
world to our children and grandchildren is neither acceptable nor unavoidable.
###
(By
the way, turning the airport into a wind farm was not my idea. Worcester's
Massachusetts State Rep. John Binienda, chair of the Joint
Committee
on Energy, first suggested it in these pages months ago. I know
he would like to see
a viable airport. I think he was thinking, as I do, that if,
in the end, we can't have a viable airport, let's put the land to a use
that
serves
all Worcester citizens.)