Governor Rick Perry made a big display of presenting his energy policy last Friday. He positioned it as a bold new plan for America, but this "drill, baby, drill" approach to energy was already stale when Sarah Palin stumped for it three years ago.
It's is déjà vu all over again. We've had a Texas oilman in charge of our country's energy policy: it worked out a lot better for Big Oil than it did for the American people. We wound up paying $4 a gallon at the pump while Exxon walked off with $45 billion in profits.
Now Perry is offering more of the same. I think the familiarity is part of the appeal. His campaign is going for the safe, tested messages here -- the proven buzz words that poll well across a broad spectrum of the Republican Party.
When you have seriously considered seceding from the union and you deny the existence of climate change, your Tea Party credentials are pretty secure. To win in the general election, however, you need the conventional GOP voters, too. Perry can pick and chose from this "all of the above" approach to energy to appeal to whichever audience he is speaking to at the time: the mainstream and the radical fringe.
That may be savvy campaigning, but it doesn't do much for America.
Perry's plan calls for pursuing fossil fuels to the ends of the Earth. He wants companies to drill miles under the Arctic Ocean for oil and inject fracking chemicals deep into peoples' backyards to bring up natural gas.
We can look in new and more extreme places for fuel, but Perry's plan boils down to this: burning rocks to create energy. It's the same technology we've been using for 200 years. Where is the innovation? Where is the vision that will carry America into the 21st century? Where is the leadership?
The rest of the world is racing to design the most cost-effective solar panels and most reliable wind turbines, because they know clean technologies will generate clean power AND lots of money. Worldwide clean energy investments were valued at $243 billion in 2010.
Perry's plan disregards these market realities, and by doing so, hands over dominance of the clean energy market to China. He's selling America short in a field we could actually lead in favor of one we never will: oil production.
Perry's call for homegrown energy has a great ring to it, but when your home only has 1.6 percent of the globe's proven oil reserves and you consume 26 percent of the world's supply, there is a limit to what you can achieve--no matter how many wells you sink. That's not politics; it's geology. And no bumper-sticker slogan can change it.
America is already drilling more than we have in decades. Perry claims that President Obama has blocked domestic oil production, but companies drilled almost 21,000 oil wells in the first eight months of this year -- the highest number in almost 30 years. That's nearly double the amount drilling the same period last year, and nearly triple the number drilled in 2009.
Yet none of this protected us from $4-a-gallon gasoline this spring. Nor will it protect us from China's growing demand, Middle Eastern politics, or any of the other forces the shape the global oil market.
That's where the innovation comes in. Better performing cars will reduce our oil dependence, and smarter policies will encourage technological advances. This summer President Obama's announced new fuel efficiency standards. By 2025, new cars and light trucks in this county will go about twice as far, on average, on a gallon of gas, compared with today's vehicles. The difference will save Americans $80 billion a year at the pump. It will also reduce our oil use by 3.1 million barrels per day by 2030 and cut automobile carbon emissions in half.
Now that's a new direction for America, a way to move into greater energy security, cleaner air, and more prosperity. Perry's plan is a retread. Sticking to the energy sources we have used for two centuries may help his campaign, but it won't do much for our country.
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At the event, Rick Perry downplayed the BP oil spill and called for more offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico:
http://newhampshireprimary.blogspot.com/2011/10/rick-perrys-energy-remarks-at-iowa.html
wind and solar are great but to believe they are ready now for mainstream is ludicrous. we are decades away...
we need a sensible energy policy - and we don't have one now
But not to worry for Perry: by then, his cronies (and himself) will have made the best of it ($$), and other countries will have the upper hand on alternative technologies. As for the US, we'll be explained why it was all the fault of Democrats.
We can drill more and in more places and we will drill more and in more places. There is no question about it, to not drill would require intelligence and foresight and that peaked a long time ago.
We are moving to a time of ever increasing price of fossil fuels, the easy accessed stuff is gone now the hard stuff to get out is left.
So the debate is not wether renewable is an option. The real debate is : Do we transition to less consumption and renewables when we have time and resources left to do it or do we drill, postpone and scramble miserably to try and do it later on when we are poorer and oil is even scarcer ?
Since that again requires intelligence and foresight we will drill and scramble period, the future is going to be interesting and very cruel.
Its rather ironic that Perry wishes to drill for newly discovered oil in the Arctic. Due to increased temperatures at the poles caused by climate change we are locating new oil wells all over the Arctic. The irony is that as we burn more oil, more Arctic ice will melt, thus allowing us to find and burn more oil. Talk about positive feedbacks... Whats more, not only will we further exacerbate climate change we will talk an already heavily degraded ecosystem and essentially put it on its deathbed.
This will be the second test of mankind to resist cheap, dirty electrons created from fossil fuels. The first is, not surprisingly, is the Alberta tar sands. Do Americans have the will power to escape the mighty power of the oil industry or will we doom our planet for every future generation?
Maybe it is not solar panels that are successful, but maybe someone can harness solar energy and convert it differently. Maybe we can find a new source of renewable energy. We should not only be supporting businesses but basic research in renewable energy. I know oil will be around for sometime and if people want drilling on the land near them then they should go for it, but we should also encourage creativity in the area of renewable energy.
I wonder if there was a horse & buggy lobby fighting oil when it was discovered and argued it took away jobs from carriage makers and those in....*ahem*...shovel ready jobs? lol...Just a thought.
You folks are just viscerally opposed to oil and you're choking on your own spleen that the US oil industry isn't down for the count, that it's actually getting a second wind.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/18/us-cuba-oil-idUSTRE79H6L820111018?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
Fanned
They are a bust everywhere:
In 2009, then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm touted the $725 million Wixom renewable energy park project as “symbolic for Michigan in what we’re going to become.”
The new solar power companies were supposed to create 4,000 jobs in a closed auto assembly plant and provide a vivid example of Michigan’s economic transition from automobiles to green energy. In return the state approved a $100 million tax credit.
Two years later, Ford told the Wixom city officials the deal wasn’t happening.
Michigan Capitol Confidential took a look back at the nine solar power companies that were approved for state tax credits. Many have fizzled with reports that the companies are laying off employees at a time they were supposed to have been adding jobs.
For example, in 2009 a company from Georgia called Suniva announced it planned to open a $250 million manufacturing plant in Saginaw County. It was to add 500 jobs.
Media reports said the company is holding off plans for a Michigan plant after deciding not to pursue a Department of Energy loan.
Energy Conversion Devices and United Solar Ovonics are affiliated companies that have been approved for state tax credits for four different projects that were supposed to add about 5,700 jobs. Both companies announced layoffs this year.
Evergreen Solar opened a solar plant in Midland in 2009. The company announced in August it was filing for bankruptcy.
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/15889
Only through R&D can we either find better solar alternatives OR other alternatives at all!
What is that attitude to leave the FUTURE all to others?
Edison and other great American innovators would be so proud of you...
we need oil, gas, and nukes now as we move to alternatives over the next 20-50 years
Should California adopt the German solar model?
http://www.grist.org/solar-power/2011-07-06-should-california-simply-adopt-german-solar-tariffs
Lessons Learned: Italy's Solar Rise and the Path Ahead
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/08/lessons-learned-italys-solar-rise-and-the-path-ahead
Spain: Gemasolar plant achieves 24-hour production
http://www.utilities-me.com/article-1420-gemasolar-plant-achieves-24-hour-production/
USA: First Solar Cuts Costs to Help It Rival China’s Photovoltaics
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-19/first-solar-cuts-costs-to-help-it-rival-china-s-photovoltaics.html
we have a nice wind farm here off the coast of Mass. - 10 YEARS waiting for approval --- get it yet?
When China has the upper hand in green technology, and we are left with gas at $15/gal, YOU will be the FIRST one to buy Chinese technology AND complain about the US government having failed us (and in your case, you will only blame a Dem one)...
And the GOP is talking about American exceptionalism...?
Governor Perry wants to shut down this burgeoning industry. Governor Perry doesn't want America to lead the world in green tech. I'd say that Gov Perry is downright anti-American.