August 13th 2008
Evidence For A Comprehensive Energy Plan
T
o listen to Nancy Pelosi, the GOP is fixated on drilling and drilling only, while the Dems want a healthy smörgåsbord (oxymoron alert!) of energy options. I’ll translate: She’s fabricating the GOP policy and the Dem smörgåsbord is all kinds of oil, as long as it’s grossly over-regulated and negatively incentivized, and all kinds of alternative fuels – except nuclear – as long as they have zero environmental impact and don’t raise the price of arugula.
For all the hoopla on wind – which overlooks the Dem constituencies that fight wind installations – it will never be ready for prime time, says Dr. Robert Zubrin of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:
Simply to replace the 18% of our natural gas we currently import would require multiplying the nation’s current total wind power tenfold; to free up enough domestic natural gas to replace half our gasoline would require a thirty-fold wind power increase. The feasibility of doing this is very doubtful, not merely because of the size of the project but because wind power is intrinsically unreliable. When the wind speed drops in half, power output drops by a factor of eight, so wind simply cannot provide the baseload power.
And remember: Enviros will sue to stop the windmill farms (can you say “Kennedy?”) and the construction of new transmission lines to carry solar- and wind-generated electricity from the deserts and plains to the cities (Why, it’s the Sierra Club!) .
To solve the energy crisis America needs to get real. Aggressive responses will require environmental impacts, but those impacts will be regulated and excesses will be penalized by laws already in place. And the Enviros will have to forfeit their desire to save every bunny and bush from any contact with evil humans.
Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy Policy, Greenies, Oil, Pelosi | 1 Comment » | |
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August 13th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
I know how the many problems associated with wind, but the one thing I am unsure of is whether, in fact, the wind corridor Pickens wants to build on migh in fact be the one place where wind can actually be useful. Looking at the wind maps, there are a lot of areas in that corridor that average over 9 mph throughout the year. So while I am hardly sold on his wind plan, I am not yet ready to jettison it as unworkable.Unfortunately, the way things are set up today, with individuals and environmental organizations able to bring private suits, we are just screwed unless and until we change the regulatory environment. There needs to be some other system put in place to provide reasonable oversight without the deliberate obstructionism that occurs in the courts today.