from the bigdumbHoosier Archive - 05.03.2001
Burn, baby, burn
Nobody can say that the Bush administration lacks for an energy policy. It's an throw-back to Stokely Carmichael's rallying cry - "burn, baby, burn". Burn oil, burn gas, burn coal. Don't conserve; burn from a thousand point-sources. Think big!
It's not difficult to predict the Bush administration's position on any issue; they get behind whatever makes money for people who already have lots, and are willing to spend some of it to stay in power. Nobody makes money on conservation, and conservation doesn't generate political contributions. Those people are not really conservatives at all, they're aggressives. Aggressive operation of extractive industries like mining, oil production and the like can produce huge streams of revenue, with enough left over to burn some to ensure a cooperative government, too.
So the initiative for conservation isn't going to come from government. It comes from seeing that huge home heating bill, or realizing that a giant SUV is too expensive to run to the grocery store for a dozen eggs. At that point, market economics kicks in and we, as rational consumers, start looking for options. The role of government is to help make sure that there are some good options out there for us to choose from.
Coal is a tantalizing energy source option. The U.S. has a huge reserve of coal, and reduced reliance on imported oil could simplify the geopolitical situation, and perhaps reduce tensions. Increased coal use might help revitalize rail networks, which could end up with some human and freight transportation spin-off benefits. Modern methods of burning coal reduce toxic pollution, though not C02, a major contributor to global warming. So, aside from that pesky global climate calamity, coal looks pretty good if that's as far as you go with the analysis. But it's not the whole story.
Coal comes from mines, strip mines mainly. Coal mines are in places like Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana. Frankly, the press doesn't seem much interested in environmental effects in places deemed unglamorous by the coastaphilic press. It's true that reclamation of strip mined lands has made a lot of progress compared to the past, but this process still leaves behind a fundamentally altered and depauperated landscape.
It doesn't end there. Disasters like the one on the Big Sandy River in Kentucky last year show just how reckless coal companies (and regulators) can be with the environment, not to mention the property and quality of life of people and other living things that happen to be unfortunate enough to get in the way of their profits. What's really amazing to me about this incident is how little press attention it received: even the ABCNews article linked below refers to it as a 'regional' disaster. So was the Exxon Valdez, but somehow that mattered. VP Cheney tells us this can all be done clean and green nowadays - it's not like the bad old days of grimey faces and poisoned air. Perhaps the technology is there, but is the will to incure the cost there? I don't see any sign that it is.
No doubt we'll continue burning some coal for awhile yet, because we know how, and it's there. But just 'doin' what we always done' is a lame excuse for an energy policy. A real energy policy gets serious about innovation- non-extractive, non-combustion based energy solutions. Solar, wind, geothermal, tides, whatever. Unproven? An administration that is ready to spend billions on a missile defense system that is, to say the least, unproven, can hardly argue that as a basis for its shortsightedness. The real reason is that old money doesn't want new answers. At least that's what this bigdumbHoosier thinks.
