Posts tagged government interfernce

Thomas Friedman had an op-ed in the NYT recently, joining in to pile on to the energy industry:”The only meaningful response to this man-made disaster is a man-made energy bill that would finally put in place an American clean-energy infrastructure that would set our country on a real, long-term path to ending our addiction to oil.”

He believes that we need to “start” moving toward greener energy. But, as an example of our lack of historical perspective, he doesn’t realize that we already are…and have been since we discovered fire. See this from a speech Michael Crichton gave at the Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy in 2005:

Ehrlich’s procedure — crying out in desperation to urge what’s already happening — isn’t unique. We have a contemporary example in the call of politicians and activists to end our dependence on fossil fuels, and move to a “carbon neutral” lifestyle. Their call to action is, however, a bit late.

According to Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller Institute, industrialized nations have been decarbonizing their energy sources for 150 years, meaning we are moving away from carbon toward hydrogen. In other words, the ratio of carbon to hydrogen decreases as you go from wood and hay (1:1) to coal to oil to gas (1:4). Here is an illustration from one of his articles:

Ausubel expects the trend to continue through this century as we move toward pure hydrogen — without the assistance of lawyers and activists. Obviously if a trend has been continuously operating since the days of Lincoln and Queen Victoria, it probably does not need the assistance of organizations like the Sierra Club and the NRDC, which are showing up about a hundred years too late.

Ausubel’s ideas are controversial to some, but not to sites like Sustainability Now:

Even now we’re moving - without government coercion - toward using compressed natural gas, biodiesels, and cellulosic ethanol as fuel for cars and buses, vehicles and appliances are becoming more efficient across the board, and people are far more conscious of the energy they use.

Why don’t we cap the well, and think long and hard about the implications of interfering in the market before the government gets involved. What they should be doing is encouraging fleet owners to convert to biodiesel or CNG, since it’s cheaper anyway, as well as being cleaner and renewable. They could also throw their weight behind the cellulosic movement, rather than corn-based ethanol; it’s more efficient, has a smaller carbon footprint, and doesn’t drive up food prices.

There’s plenty to do before increasing regulation.