Obama Energy Secretary is a Capitalist’s ‘Worst Nightmare’
December 19, 2008
Barack Obama has announced his major Energy appointments, and the news isn’t good. Our new Energy Secretary under Obama will be a professor of physics at the University of Berkeley named Steven Chu. Liberals will be quick to point to his Nobel Prize as one of his strengths, but I will be quicker and point out that his Nobel Prize is in physics, which has nothing to do with energy policy. Despite the fact that climate science is not his academic expertise, Chu has made finding solutions to global warming into something of a “passion,” according to the New York Times.
What is his solution to the “problem” of global warming?
We need to alter the playing field with tax and fiscal polices… Developed countries have made this step with air and water pollution by enacting outright regulations and installing a cap and trade system.
Uh huh. So the new Energy Secretary has no plans on how to create new energy in the United States? Just more regulation and taxes on energy that we already have?
More:
Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work. “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September.
The new Energy Secretary is not interested in energy independence. In the strictest sense of the word, he is looking to foster a new energy dependence– not a dependence on foreign suppliers, like in the past. No, Chu’s new energy plan is to socially-engineer the American people towards a further dependence on the government. The state will decide what kind of cars we drive and how close we live together.
The media is taking much enjoyment in pointing out that Obama disagrees with Chu on gas taxes. Its true. In the past, Obama has opposed a raise in the gas tax, but it is likely that his reasons were rooted in political pragmatism (remember gas prices in the summer?). But now that he’s got the top job, Obama can
appoint ideologues like Chu to high-level positions in his cabinet and let them make all of the hard decisions for him.
In addition to wanting to dictate to oil companies what they should charge for their products, Mr. Chu has referred to coal powered energy as his “worst nightmare,” and has said that even clean-coal technologies will not be enough. “It’s not guaranteed we have a solution for coal,” he said.
Take a look at this graph of where our electricity came from in 2007. As you can see, coal power makes up about half of all of it. That’s a good thing; and Steven Chu wants a “solution” for it.
In summary:
December 20th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Our world needs to be serious about Appropriate Technology when it comes to the energy issues and climate change we have.
The political world wants to use Alternative Energy. This does not address the reduction of the waste as the energy is passed through the system. Please do not misunderstand, Alternative Energy has its place but is not the cure all for our immediate issues.
Or world need to be putting the majority of our dollars and resources (man power) into the reduction of what we consume first. Only then should we be investing in technologies that we have no idea on how long it will take to bring them to market. Let’s use the 80-20 rule, 80% into what we have and 20% into new.
We already have off the shelf technology to build houses that are true Net Zero (meaning no utility bill). So why are we not doing this? You the consumer need to demand this from your local codes, architect, builder, and manufacture of the appliances and products in your home. And if the home does not perform as promised all should be held accountable,
We can even make the majority of existing homes at least 60-80% more efficient then they are. Through a Home Performance Evaluation by a qualified Building Science Person, then remediation by a company that knows how to do Home Performance Remediation. Then a test out to be sure the house performs. This is by products that are off the shelf and are available today!!!
So instead of looking for the silver bullet approach lets do the thousands of silver bb’s and reduce our consumption along with the technology we have to use renewable energy. Together these two avenues will lead us to the desired goal, less pollution, reduced climate change, less dependence on fossil fuels, many jobs and we can start today.
For those who do not believe homes can be so energy efficient look at the Austrian Passive Home.
And this is only what can be done in the residential market that uses about 21.75% (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/diagram1.html) of our nation’s energy. There are huge efficiency increases that can be made in the other sectors. This along with Renewable Energy could make the world NET ZERO, what a thought.
Andy Wahl
Whole House Performance
Our 23 yr old house produces more electricity than we consume. This is year 7 of our 2.8 KW PV system. Each year we work on a project to reduce our energy bill.