In the face of a changing fiscal and political environment, Congress and various states are belatedly rethinking their far-flung efforts to restructure and regulate the nation’s energy markets. The opportunity is to change course and base their actions on facts, not emotion–and slow down and even reverse governmental largesse. The global warming scare has been cut down to size, after all, and the problems of politically dependent energies are more evident than ever.
Too many legislators and interventionists cling to basic energy myths, however. Here are five major ones.
Myth: Foreign Oil Provides Most of Our Energy
According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Energy Information Administration, oil represents less than 40% of our energy use. A full two-thirds of that oil comes from North America, primarily Canada, not the Middle East.…
In a March 4 article, writer Michael Burnham of E&E News PM (subscription required) talks about the slow down in “clean energy” investments and what this might mean for reducing the carbon peak:
Investments in new wind farms and other “clean” energy projects are slowing with the crumbling global economy, and that could make climate change’s bite harder in the decades ahead, financial analysts warned today.
…With coal-fired power plants, steel mills and cement kilns producing less, greenhouse gas emissions are falling in the short term, the London-based market analytics firm New Energy Finance says in a report today. But flat investment in lower-emission alternatives in the next two or three years — presumably the time it takes for economies to rebound — could push what the analysts dub “peak carbon” back by more than a decade.
EPA administrator Lisa Jackson is currently weighing whether to reverse the Bush Administration’s policy and grant a waiver for the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB’s) stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards. Thirteen other states are poised to adopt the CARB program if Jackson reverses. But what will ensue is less a victory for “clean air” than the creation of a chaotic and likely intractable set of regulations with very modest emission reductions. In the current economic climate, in fact, the waiver will likely result in increased GHG emissions.…