The thoughts in this diary have been sitting on my hard drive for months, getting a some rearrangement, additions, and etc. But this week and last, four recent articles about energy, innovation and pollution linked up in my mind and forced this diary out of my head and onto Daily Kos. The basic idea is that Bush and Republican energy and pollution policies are condemning the U.S. to become reliant on foreign technology and know-how (again). While Japan and Europe are creating world class solar and wind-power industries---as well as designing innovative and efficient automobiles---thanks to Bush policies like scrapping New Source Review, the U.S. is headed to become the world leader in maintaining 50 year-old coal-fired power plants.
The four articles:
- S&P Downgrades GM and Ford Credit Rating to Junk-Bond Status
- Used Toyota Prius hybrids selling for more than their asking price
- An op-ed called "Lack of vision on policy clouds energy future"
- "Southern Co. Won't Cut Carbon Output Much"
Links and commentary below the jump.
The first happening was discussed thoroughly here and elsewhere:
S&P Downgrades GM and Ford Credit Rating to Junk-Bond Status (note: if you are interested in alternative fueled vehicles,
Green Car Congress is well worth reading). The big U.S. automobile companies had a tough 70s and 80s, primarily because they didn't look ahead and they didn't innovate. Now, with rising oil prices, they are going to be left in the dust again by Japanese and European car makers.
Next, I saw an article in the SF Chronicle called Even used, some Prius hybrid cars selling for above sticker price by Alicia Chang (Associated Press). It said that people are bidding up the prices of used hybrids. All of them made in Japan, of course. Meanwhile, America's passion for burly SUV fizzles.
Then, in Friday's SF Chronicle, the OpEd page had a thoughtful piece by UC Berkeley professor Daniel M. Kammen: Lack of vision on policy clouds energy future. Some excerpts:
Late last month, President Bush unveiled five new energy "initiatives" as solutions to our energy, security and economic ills. None of them addresses any of the real issues facing the country, and in total they demean our country's capacity to take control of our energy future, ignoring the ways we can solve our energy problems by promoting economic growth, technological innovation and environmental protection.
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The real issue, in fact, is that today our energy economy lacks the diversity it needs to respond to the inevitable economic, political and environmental shocks that history has demonstrated occur frequently. By contrast, the initiatives presented by the president signal to American industry that investment in truly innovative technologies and economic leadership is not a national priority.
A true energy policy, one worthy of presidential endorsement, would have several key components:
-- First, the United States needs to recapture the mantle of leadership in innovative renewable-energy technology and policy. Today, orders for wind turbines are flooding Danish and German factories. Germany, in fact, also has almost three times the total installed wind capacity as the United States, with a resource less than that of North Dakota alone, according to an analysis of data from the American Wind Energy Association and other sources. The global market for photovoltaics -- solar cells -- has, like the wind industry, grown by more than 20 percent a year for the past decade, according to the San Francisco solar-energy research firm Solarbuzz, Inc., and yet the United States lags behind Japan and Germany in producing and installing this local and secure source of power.
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Finally, instead of denying and impeding international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases, the federal government needs recognize the business potential in leading the fight to safeguard the planet. Business opportunities abound in developing and selling solar panels, wind turbines and gasifiers that turn agricultural waste and crops into a truly natural gas, as well as developing a new generation of energy-efficient appliances.
Taken together, these advances could evolve our economy from one of energy "hunter-gatherers" to one of "energy farmers" -- from a reliance on a precarious and tremendously expensive traditional supply to meet a steadily growing demand, to one that emphasizes a full range of energy supply, efficiency and demand-management technologies. That's a policy worthy of presidential support.
Finally, the business section had this: Southern Co. Won't Cut Carbon Output Much by AP. In other words, Southern Company doesn't give a damn. They're content to keep 50 year-old coal plants alive instead of entering the 21st century. In addition, because of captive regulators, they have no incentive to implement effective energy efficiency programs to cut demand.
Even if high taxes are imposed on emissions of greenhouse gases, it won't make Southern Co. cut back much on emitted carbon dioxide over the next 15 years, the giant coal-burning utility Thursday said in a report to shareholders.
Atlanta-based Southern said the imperatives of generating power for its customers in the South, where economic growth is expected to exceed the national average, will mostly trump the added cost of failing to comply with theoretical limits on carbon dioxide emissions
[...]
Now, those long-simmering thoughts:
The Bush administration and the Republican party seems to think that spending money on reducing pollution is like throwing it into a deep pit. They couldn't be more wrong. Installing pollution controls require industry and consumers to spend money in the near term, but over the long term the investment more than pays for itself in terms of lower health care costs, increased worker productivity, and creation of new industries and jobs. One example is a 2003 study by the Office of Management and Budget (PDF, full reference at the bottom of the diary) which found that although the total annual quantified costs of EPA regulations between 1992 and 2002 was about $25 billion, the total annual quantified benefits to the U.S. were between $120 and $193 billion --- a payback of almost 500% ! (Did your investments make that kind of return?). Another example: "Smog costs Californians more than $521 million a year - a price paid in hundreds of trips to the emergency room, thousands of hospital admissions and millions of missed school days, according to an analysis of state data by the Environmental Working Group (EWG)."
Renewable energy and pollution control can create jobs, technology, and a potentially huge export industry. The money spent by utilities to remove pollution and improve efficiency doesn't get buried under a mound of earth, but goes to the companies who engineer, manufacture, install and maintain the equipment. Strict anti-pollution regulations can help the United States become the world leader in pollution reducing technology. Not only will this improve our air, water and land, but could become a key part of a new export economy. As other countries develop and increase their energy consumption (e.g., China and India), the U.S. could have a tremendously valuable portfolio of products and know-how to help those countries create a clean energy and transportation portfolio.
The choices are clear: innovation or stagnation, creativity or corpulence, clean air or cronyism. Bush, Cheney and Delay choose stagnation, corpulence and cronyism. Their policies, if adopted, will make the U.S. the world leader in importing oil and maintaining outdated coal power plants instead of making us the world leader in exhaust scrubbers, catalytic technology, emissions monitoring, and fuel-efficient cars.
The OMB Report cited above: "Informing Regulatory Decisions: 2003 Report to Congress on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local, and Tribal Entities," Office of Management and Budget, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. PDF here