Campaign Corner - Energy Policy

Brought to you via STLOUIS.COM, Experts say candidates miss the boat on energy crunch

 

I think that the following article was fairly balanced, bottom line, neither candidate has stepped up with a definitive plan!

 

I have hi-lited some key points for your consideration :o)

 

Energy experts were heartened that an overdue discussion about the nation's energy future has begun in earnest. But they worried that much of what voters hear is long on gimmickry but short on frank talk and long-term solutions.

"The campaigns are operating at a superficial level," said Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department official in the administration of President Bill Clinton and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank in Washington. "It's like magical thinking, with no one bothering to scratch the surface."

Kenneth Green, an energy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said candidates were in "full-on pander mode, flailing around looking for anything that has traction in polls."

And neither candidate is addressing the biggest issue of them all, said Robert Kaufmann, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University.

 

That issue is an upcoming peak in global oil production followed immediately by decline as soon as the next decade, when the United States will have to be ready with affordable energy alternatives.

Experts say that even though gas prices have dipped slightly of late, consumers can expect high costs and a volatile market from here on out, starting with painful heating-price increases this winter.

As energy took center stage in the campaign last week, Republican John McCain stepped up efforts to promote offshore drilling, something that most Americans endorse and that Democrat Barack Obama also recently accepted after a change of heart.

Kaufmann says that having more drill rigs in the ocean is beside the point.   "Saying that we can drill our way out of it, this idea that every little bit helps is denying reality," he said. "And we see where denying reality has gotten us."

'PERFECT STORM'

Politicians reflexively avoid giving voters bad news. During a brief oil crisis in 1979, President Jimmy Carter donned a sweater, installed solar panels in the White House and delivered a solemn speech trying to enlist Americans in an energy battle that he called "the moral equivalent of war."

Carter's approval ratings sank further and he lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan, who struck a more upbeat tone — and removed the solar panels.

What we are seeing now is far more serious than in the 1970s, "a perfect storm," says Peter Garforth, who advises businesses and governments around the world on energy problems.

That coming storm will involve:

— Uncontrolled and unpredictable energy prices.
— Interruptions in supplies.
— Environmental damage from climate change beyond what many expected.

Garforth argued that neither Obama nor McCain were communicating clearly that the nation had failed dramatically to conserve energy. Nor are the candidates saying enough about how Americans' waste — using twice as much energy per person than Europeans [what are you doing to lower your carbon footprint?] — is damaging the United States' ability to compete in the world.

"It may not be good politics, but it's not fair to the electorate to let them think that a few little tweaks are going to fix the problem," said Garforth, who heads Garforth International LLC, based in Ohio.

A NUCLEAR SOLUTION?

Given the seriousness of the problems, 2008 may be recalled as the energy election. And no bolder and transforming plan has been introduced than McCain's proposal to build 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 — even though no new reactors have been ordered in the United States since the late 1970s.

"If we want to enable the technologies of tomorrow like plug-in electric cars, we need electricity to plug into," McCain said last week while touring a nuclear plant in Michigan [He visited Fermi station South of Detroit, I used to work there :o)].

Illinois is the state with the most nuclear plants. Its junior senator, Obama, also has said that nuclear power needs to be an option after the nation deals more aggressively with nuclear waste and the security of nuclear fuel.

Energy experts note that there has been little mention of Wall Street's aversion to funding nuclear energy because of risks and costs, which could leave taxpayers on the hook for more than $200 billion in loan guarantees under McCain's Lexington Project — far beyond the $18.5 billion in loan guarantees approved last year by Congress.

Building nuclear plants in France and Japan has been less challenging because those governments are financial partners with industry. Alvarez, a longtime nuclear critic, questioned whether American taxpayers were ready for what he called "state capitalism, with direct intervention in a large sector of the economy."

Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman John Keeley acknowledged the need for ongoing federal support but said investors would be playing abigger role in coming years when they saw the dividends of billions in taxpayer loan guarantees.

"If Wall Street sees 4-8 plants built with important federal support over the next seven years, on cost and on schedule, I think you're going to see robust support from the financial sector," he said.

CONFLICT OVER COAL

In a speech last month that roiled the waters among environmentalists and policymakers, Al Gore said the United States needed to end its reliance on fossil fuels within a decade because of the imminent threats of global warming.

Gore's challenge to phase out coal — which generates roughly half of the electricity in America — is one that fellow Democrat Obama has not taken up.

In a speech at Michigan State University last week, Obama reiterated his support for research into technology that would use more coal rather than phasing it out. He said that his goal was to build five coal-fired demonstration plants that capture and sequester the carbon pollution that worries Gore and environmentalists.

Meanwhile, McCain wants to commit $2 billion annually for research to develop clean-coal technology.

William Shilts, who heads the University of Illinois' [A fine institution if I do say so myself] Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability, argued that the candidates were wisely disregarding Gore's advice because it would be impossible to replace an equivalent amount of electricity.

"That's just not a feasible or responsible thing to say," Shilts said. "If we're going to cut down on greenhouse gases, we have to find a way to sequester them and emissions in general."

RENEWABLE ALTERNATIVES

Politicians are among those paying attention to billionaire T. Boone Pickens' recent campaign to promote renewable energies — particularly wind farms. Pickens says in an Internet message: "I have been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we cannot drill our way out of."

Both major candidates point to their plans to promote wind energy, solar power, biofuels and other renewable energies. McCain wants to make tax credits that promote renewable energy permanent, although he has stressed offshore drilling of late over other options. Obama says extending the tax credits for five years would be a good start.

Neither candidate has focused heavily on solar power, still an expensive technology but potentially a breakthrough if we can believe assertions that in one hour's time, enough sunlight hits the earth to meet the world's energy needs for a year.

Michael Moynihan, an energy expert at NDN, a think tank in Washington aligned with Democrats, said the candidates needed a far more robust plan for solar power.

"On this issue, I think that Americans are ahead of the candidates of both parties," he said.

Richard Kearney, an energy expert who heads the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University, offered an explanation as to why the major candidates seem to be talking about energy in piecemeal fashion: Voters don't like to deal with complicated matters [I appologize for the length of this entry, but this sums it up for me].

But Kearney said that candidates need to find a way to communicate better about energy even though the issues may be complex.

"Our energy economy is undergoing a transformation, and we're just in the early stages," he said.

Tags: Obama, McCain, Energy Policy, Nuclear, Solar