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July 02, 2006
Unnecessary Support
(Posted by John.)
Ezra's done a beautiful job putting Jonah Goldberg in his place. It was, dare I say it, Juan Cole-esque. And Ezra doesn't need me to get his back. Still, it's quite rich for conservatives to talk about how American prosperity is totally dependent on fossil fuels, when this is only true because of the policies that conservatives themselves have pursued.
Let's begin with the immediate post-war period. Harry Truman, shortly before leaving office, was presented with a report by the Materials Commission which advocated that the government abandon civilian nuclear power and fossil fuels, to be replaced by wind (which had been a major producer before the New Deal explosion in hydroelectric power) and solar thermal power. (Solar photovoltaic power didn't exist at the time.)
In comes President Eisenhower, and in comes "Atoms for Peace". America was herded away from the sun, and into an era of nuclear power.
Then, in the Carter administration, the President advocated for any and all means to combat America's dependence on oil - what do you think "the moral equivalent of war" meant? Carter proposed that America should get 20% of its energy from solar sources by 1990.
In comes President Reagan, and the solar panels Carter had put on the White House were thrown out. Reagan gutted conservation and renewable efforts while he was in office, and basically regarded environmentalism as the next best thing to Das Kapital.
At this point, mentioning that Bush's energy plan is an abomination is really redundant. The point is clear: The prosperity that conservatives like to claim is dependent on fossil fuels is entirely fictional: Nothing that America makes is of necessity made from fossil fuels. Almost everything America does today, could be done sustainably. (Sorry, SUV drivers. You're on your own.)
What's even more ridiculous is that in broad strokes, we can say that America could easily have met it's Kyoto targets if there'd been a real effort to reduce coal generation and encourage automobile fuel efficiency. Guess which party stood in the way?
July 2, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
I agree that Republicans may be responsible for more of our problem than the Democrats; but Democratic share is a lot higher than zero. Truman's commission may have supported solar and wind. Historically I wonder how enthusaistic Truman himself was. Regardless, when it comes to Carter it is worth remembering that he put a hell of a lot more political capital into supporting synfuels than solar energy. He supported putting a lot more money into nuclear than into renewables. On renewable energy he put a lot more into supporting research than incentives for what could have been done at the time. Even today, one favorite talking point of the wing nuts happens to be true. Along with Republican Warner, Kennedy did help kill Cape Wind - which would otherwise have been the first offshore wind plant in the U.S.
Posted by: Gar Lipow | Jul 2, 2006 3:57:10 PM
I think the problem is at the pols. (not polls).
We need to get back to somewhere in the middle.
I came across this declaration that I thought was at least worth a look: www.unity08.com/declaration
Posted by: ForUnity | Jul 2, 2006 4:19:20 PM
Al Gore 3.0:
"Right now we are borrowing huge amounts of money from China to buy huge amounts of oil from the most unstable region of the world, and to bring it here and burn it in ways that destroy the habitability of the planet. That is nuts! We have to change every aspect of that."
Posted by: Bruce Wilder | Jul 2, 2006 4:29:29 PM
This is a level of paranoid conspiracy theory that makes even me look sane. Eisenhower a tool of big oil?
I am starting to think of this as the Tinkerbell blog. Close eyes and wish really hard (elect Democrats) and America will be Sweden. We elected Clinton, who proposed a carbon tax, and we lost Congress. Yah, Yah, correlation is not causality. It is all my fault, my negative vibes are killing Tinkerbell.
It ain't that simple. Ya know my gurus at BOPNews hate Hillary, like Edwards and Finegold, agree that we absolutely must move off oil. Now. The only difference is that they say it will not be cost-free and politically easy. Now I am certainly not an accepted member in good standing of the reality-based community, but I just can't believe in Tinkerbell.
American Thermidor on Steroids
"It may mean war, good chance of it. If it doesn't you're lucky, but you still get to eat anywhere between a 15% to 25% decline in your standard of living. And someone else will do it, and they will becoming the leader for the next cycle, if they don't screw it up. And because of your high fixed costs, you will be in for decades of pain. People forget how long things in England seemed like a long grey decline. Many, many decades." ...Ian Welsh, in comments
"To explain – housing is propped up by the pressure of transportation – if the cost of transportation goes up, then the size of a metropolitan area must go down, and the property values at its peripheries must plunge. Both the United Kingdom and the United States have enjoyed greater prosperity than their rivals – despite low investment rates – because they have poured effort into creating higher and higher land values and larger and larger cities. Properly looked at, much of the "consumption" of oil should really be looked at as investment in land prices. Once this is done, it can be seen that the UK and the US are saving – they are saving oil in the form of land prices.
This fan directly into a contradiction – to keep wages down, there had to be labor arbitrage – taking expensive jobs out of the developed world, and sending them to nations with lower labor prices. In no small part, lower labor prices because of lower land prices. The very increase in land prices that profited the winners of the developed economy, priced new jobs out of the market. To create a new job was to pay for the natural cost of buying a home near where it was created, and spiraling land prices meant spiraling costs."
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 2, 2006 4:49:18 PM
what is the outlook for more nuclear power in the united states?
do the safety concerns and waste issues continue to make it not very viable and too environmentally controversial?
Posted by: jacqueline | Jul 2, 2006 6:07:45 PM
The Stupid Years ok here we go. Spent an hour looking for this post, from Nov 11,2005
"If American decides to slam the door shut on energy, then we have to realize there is a trade off. We currently import about 2% of GDP as energy. That means that we will have to replace that 2%. That replacement isn't going to take 2% of GDP, but closer to 6% of GDP. The sensible people don't want to point at which 6% of the economy we can do without. They all imagine that when the world is pushed out, they, as individuals, will be able to bum rush the lump of work better, and someone else will be out the 6%.
But it gets worse. If the US isn't using the cheaper energy, someone else will, and that means that the US will have to, bit by bit, shut the door on everything, because energy is fungible. We import not only energy directly, but indirectly. Now things get worse from there - once we stop importing just about anything, other nations ask "why, exactly, should we pay intellectual property rent to these people, when they won't by the stuff we make with it. The result? They simply start pirating intellectual capital. Good luck convincing another government that we just shut down trade with to aggressively enforce something which sends money from their economy to our economy.
And so our exports go down even more, and other nations wean themselves off our songs, movies and television shows. They pirate our designs, and sample the riffs. It's all out there." ...Stirling Newberry
Briefly, in addition:All our assets, from stocks to houses, are "overvalued" 20-30% because the dollar is the reserve currency. The dollar is the reserve currency because of inertia, and because our huge military protects the international commodity markets. Our dependence on foreign oil is like a hostage, it assures the rest of the world that we will continue to protect the shipping lanes. Our trade/currentaccount/budget deficits show that all we can produce better than anyone else is bombs and dollars.
We import oil so we can export dollars to China so China can export widgets. We can maybe (there are many competitors with head starts) move to an energy technology exporter, but factories must be built and factories torn down. Where does that capital come from?To change from an import to an export economy will cost us about 20-30% of our standard of living for a generation.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 2, 2006 6:27:18 PM
"what is the outlook for more nuclear power in the united states?"
Gore answers that, where did I read that yesterday? Drum? Nuclear is a huge capital expenditure with a delayed return 5-7 years until energy production and profits. Probably need massive gov't subsidies, if not nearly all.
But part of the medium-term solution.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 2, 2006 6:32:58 PM
bob...
i found your last several posts and links very interesting/ informative.
thank you.
Posted by: jacqueline | Jul 2, 2006 6:40:06 PM
>That means that we will have to replace that 2%. That replacement isn't going to take 2% of GDP, but closer to 6% of GDP. The sensible people don't want to point at which 6% of the economy we can do without.
There are two possible interpertations of this - and in either one are failing simple addition and substraction. If we are losing 2% and it requires 6% to make up for it then the loss is 4%. If we are losing 2% and an additional 6% making up for it then loss is 8%.
However you are assuming that there has to be a net cost to replacing fossil fuels. It is quite true that any 1-to-1 replacement is more expensive. Nuclear, and solar are both pricier than fossil fuels. But there is a huge untapped potential for efficiency. Efficiency is cheaper than fossil fuels. Increase efficiency tremendously, so that you squeeze more GDP out of a unit of energy. Then, even if that unit is more costly because it comes from the sun or from uranium, your total growth in GDP is the same - because your net cost, is the same. That is you are spending the same percent of your GDP on energy as before - just allocating more to efficiency improvements and less to operating energy.
Posted by: Gar Lipow | Jul 2, 2006 9:20:45 PM
Perhaps all of you people should drive hydrogen powered hybrids, like me?
http://slashdot.org/~GMontag/journal/138920
Still waiting for a print copy of the article from TNR so I can use HOV.
Now, on a serious note, when a better fuel than oil comes along, it will replace oil, just like petrol replaced whale oil and aluminum replaced tin.
Please stop believing Time reporters, who were calling for a man-made ice age (cover story) when I was Ezra's age.
Posted by: Guy Montag | Jul 2, 2006 11:00:05 PM
>Please stop believing Time reporters, who were calling for a man-made ice age (cover story) when I was Ezra's age.
Really? The NY Times was advocating an ice age? Wow, I mean I know they were murderous liberals out to destroy all that is good and right, as evil liberal s always do. But they came out and said a new ice age would be a good thing? Why haven't the right wing blogs trumpet this the way the do the old lie about most climate scientists once predicting an ice age.
For a snappy rebuttal of that old lie, try:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/they-predicted-cooling-in-1970s.html
Posted by: Gar Lipow | Jul 2, 2006 11:27:27 PM
"However you are assuming that there has to be a net cost to replacing fossil fuels"
Not my words and I don't entirely understand them. My immediate guess is that there is a multiplier effect to cheap easily transported energy, that energy is used to moved goods to where they are wanted, people to where they are productive, and hey, information to where it adds value. If an electric van takes 5-10 hours to charge, maybe the florist will need two more vans. Or deliver less flowers.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 3, 2006 12:00:00 AM
>If an electric van takes 5-10 hours to charge, maybe the florist will need two more vans. Or deliver less flowers.
Or charge the van at night since presumably it is not driven 24 hours a day.
Posted by: Gar Lipow | Jul 3, 2006 12:16:42 AM
Or have two battery packs, and leave one on charge while using the other, then swap them every day.
Or use a post-horse system in which petrol stations will swap your expended pack for a charged one, for a small amount.
Posted by: ajay | Jul 3, 2006 5:14:52 AM
Guy Montag,
Thank you for the reasoned post in a sea of "chicken little" comments. Oil is there, not because of some nefarious conspiracy, but becuase it's the best and least expensive at this time. When a better mousetrap becomes viable, the world will, indeed, beat a path to it's door. What form will it take? I don't know but I doubt if any of you will see it take a large share of the energy needs in your lifetimes.
There is lots of fossil fuel. The easy to get and cheap stuff may be gone, but it is only a small percentage of the whole.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Jul 3, 2006 8:37:51 AM
"Or use a post-horse system in which petrol stations will swap your expended pack for a charged one, for a small amount."
The question is not whether these changes, adjustments are impossible;the question is how much the transition and refits will cost, and how much sunk capital we will eat.
I respect Krugman's .2-.3% a bunch, but I really don't even know where to start calculating those kinds of figures. Does he count mothballed refineries and pipelines?
Newberry & Welch might be real high, but they are including various deficit interactions. Energy transition is like the neo-liberals on free trade, maybe offshoring manufacturing and tech will create just tons of good American jobs, but I am not ready to take anything on faith.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 3, 2006 9:32:21 AM
Gar,
Other than ignoring all of the words I used, you are right on the money. Just kidding.
I said Time, as in the magazine owned by the NYT. I did not say they were "advocating" anything as good or bad, they were just making yet another fanciful prediction without basis. Now they have reversed.
Cute link of someone's opinion.
Now, will someone forward this link to TNR so I can drive my 1972 Dodge Charger in the HOV lanes? They no longer want to talk to me now that their story is published.
http://slashdot.org/~GMontag/journal/138920
"Shooter"
Posted by: Guy Montag | Jul 3, 2006 2:46:01 PM
Les,
Hey man! Long time no see!
Montag
Posted by: Guy Montag | Jul 3, 2006 3:23:40 PM
>Newberry & Welch might be real high, but they are including various deficit interactions. Energy transition is like the neo-liberals on free trade, maybe offshoring manufacturing and tech will create just tons of good American jobs, but I am not ready to take anything on faith.
It is not a matter of prediction but a matter of choice. It can be done properly or improperly.
I focused on some details that obviously made no sense. But there is a larger issue. The whole conspiracy vs. free market doing right argument ignored another possibiltity - that what we have is a result of a reasonably free market, but that reasonably free market got it wrong.
There is such thing as market failure - and it is ideology not sound economics to assume market failure is always and everywhere worse than government failure. In short we have alternative to oil, to gas, even to coal that are cheaper than these fuels. And we have ignored them not due to any major conspiracy, but to to structural flaws that cause us to miss them.
There is huge efficiency potential that would have provided economic savings even at the prices we paid for fossil fuels in 1998, or 1995 or 1990. And that potential was ignored not for any great conspiratorial reason but due to many factors. Transaction costs are on. Split incentives is another. (Not only between firms but within firms;in many firms to institute energy savings would account for the costs in one department but the benefits in another - creating quite understandable manager resistance.) There is also the fact the greater energy efficiency requires a kind of whole system thinking that in turn requires information that tends to fall "between the gaps" inside firms.
There is also the question of incentives for managers not neccesarily being 100% in line with firm interest. For example saving $1,000,000 in energy costs may not look as good on a resume as adding $1,000,000 in sales.
Posted by: Gar Lipow | Jul 3, 2006 4:29:24 PM
Gar,
The market finds efficiencies without the intervention of a Czar.
'Shooter'
Posted by: Guy Montag | Jul 3, 2006 7:20:25 PM
>The market finds efficiencies without the intervention of a Czar.
It is a myth that the market always finds efficiencies. Look at the work done by the RMI. Ignore the hydrogen nonsense and look at the rest -documenting efifciencies markets overlooks. I gave in my post reasons why people operating in markets might overlook them.
Posted by: Gar Lipow | Jul 3, 2006 7:44:49 PM
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