Make-Believe Energy

Mackubin Owens, who teaches national-security affairs at the Naval War College, tries to explain why the Democrat's make-believe energy "solutions" don't actually, you know, work. It is, as always when dealing with people who flat-out do not understand energy or physics, an uphill fight. But he tries to explain why the energy bills in Congress simply do not work in the real world.

The House's measures also raise false hopes by promoting the fiction that "renewable" energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels can replace oil and gas in an economically viable manner any time soon, mandating that 20 percent of electricity be generated from renewable-energy sources.

The reason such energy sources need subsidies in the first place is that they have intrinsic shortcomings. Energy available from wind and solar is dispersed rather than concentrated - which means that windmill or solar-panel farms must be huge to generate much power. (Even then, clouds and/or lack of wind can slow or stop production, so utilities would need non-fairy-dust backup generators.)

These alternatives are far too expensive and unreliable to compete on the market. By forcing such costly options on the public and subsidizing them via tax breaks and the like, this bill would hit Americans both as ratepayers and taxpayers.

As bad as the House bill on fairy-dust energy sources, the Senate is even worse, mandating a sevenfold increase in biofuels production. To see the problem, consider the most popular biofuel, ethanol.

He discusses what I have pointed out repeatedly, of course: skyrocketing food prices are already happening and will get much worse as more and more food is diverted to fuel production. There will be less and less food for the poorest nations at any price. He does not mention the other real kicker: ethanol produces about 50% more greenhouse gas than the equivalent amount of fossil fuel. And I long ago addressed the issue of wind power.

As Owens points out, the Democrats are pushing fairy tale solutions bathed in the golden glow of soaring rhetoric. Unfortunately the reality is more than a bit grim.

• 

  By BubbaB, Wednesday, 26 September , 2007 @ 12:53 pm

  Unfortunately, it seems like there are some Republicans who have also fallen for the shiny lights of the fairy-dust solutions. We need to kick all of the politicians in the pants over this!

• 

  By Gaius, Wednesday, 26 September , 2007 @ 1:09 pm

  Yup.

• 

  By mockinbird, Wednesday, 26 September , 2007 @ 3:42 pm

  And keep kicking.

Other Links to this Post

1. Blue Crab Boulevard » Refusing Debate — Friday, 28 September , 2007 @ 8:30 pm