Prince William Committee of 100
Posted by Chap at 4/18/2008 10:52 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
Last night I moderated a panel on energy before the Prince William County Committee of 100, a non-partisan group that meets to review and discuss political issues. Here's an article in the Potomac News today:
http://www.insidenova.com/isn
There were representatives there from Dominion Power, the local electrical co-op, an independent energy producer and also an energy economist.
It was a good panel and the crowd was active with questions. Every panelist, of course, pledged fealty to increasing renewable resources and reducing consumption to fight carbon output.
It's a question of economics: rising gas prices are building interest in alternative forms of energy. However, is the long-term interest there to bring the massive investment in R&D necessary for sustainable system-wide programs?
In the meantime, what will happen to our household bills when the traditional "rate caps" are removed as dictated by the 2007 re-regulation law? Our ratepayers seem to be bearing all the risk.
One thing is sure (and I know I'm repeating myself) is that energy issues are now absolutely paramount in the minds of voters, especially younger ones. It has become our generation's Cold War-type challenge. A large part of it is rising fuel costs. A large part of it is global warming. A large part of it is our nation's over-dependence on foreign suppliers.
Much of this can only be dealt with on the national level, i.e. nationwide emissions caps. However, much can be accomplished on the state level, e.g. a new building code which incorporates energy-efficient standards or "real time pricing" to lessen our need for costly peaking power. And even more can be done on the local and household level.
Is it just me, or is there some sort of blindness going on with what is happening in the world today?
We are paying farmers to NOT grow crops, and we have people going hungry all over the world. We have energy needs that can be met using coal (an abundant resource in the US), or even better Nuclear Power, but we are being hamstrung by environmentalists that are more bent on ensuring the survival of a species or two (and there have been millions that have come and gone over the millenia) - even Humans will be on the chopping block some day I am sure.
Lets get some common sense policies in place. Go ahead and grow food. Go ahead and build power plants to meet our current needs. With abundant energy prices will stabilize (at least for home energy management) and we can focus our efforts on making these forms of energy cleaner, and recyclable.
It just seems ridiculous to me that we hold ourselves to some artificial standard for air quality, when billions of Chinese could give a damn about the rest of the world. You don't see them wringing themselves silly over issues like this. And sure, maybe they should be worried about it, but the reality is, we should not hamstring ourselves (and our allies) to maintain some artificial sense of "doing the right thing". All that will ensure is that we will go the way of the dodo long before they do.
Lets get the planting started - if the government is going to subsidize something, lets pay to GROW food. Lets invest in the ability to grow crops that can sustain themselves in harsh environments - they are looking at using potatoes now (again - see the Irish) to grow in countries where conditions are not favorable since they don't need as much water and are highly nutritious. Stop using food sources for biofuels, use food for people. Build nuclear power plants in isolated areas (yes they need water supplies but that can be provided with desalinated salt water created with power produced by the plant itself).
We have problems we need to deal with that are immediate - lets deal with them in a smart way that lets us meet both our current needs, and also deal with issues that the future seems to be holding for us. It seems that everything happening today is a knee-jerk reaction to a "consensus" (note - not proven fact) - and yet even today we hear that the oldest spruce tree was found in Sweden that is almost 10,000 years old (they used to believe they were in the northwest US at 7500 years) and that it used to be MUCH warmer in Sweden than anyone ever suspected. Warmer by far than today. Certainly we are seeing global warming - but it is much more likely tied to global and solar cycles much more than us people. This almost seems like one of those moments proving the earth was round - you were a heretic if you disputed the consensus.
Let's use common sense.
- Peace