Small-Town Thinker

-by 'tamerlane'

Sarah Palin's recent WaPo op-ed was a no-nonsense, concise outline of the contrasts between her positions on energy and Obama's Cap & Trade policy. Crisp and readable, Palin's piece underscored Obama's feeble, mealy-mouthed approach, and defined her own views in no uncertain terms.

Trouble is, whatever the faults of the present incarnation of the Cap & Trade plan, Palin's alternative is merely the warmed-over leftovers of the Oil Lobby. Her approach to energy is decidedly small-town, and she doggedly refuses to think outside of the box.

Palin observes that "American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy." Time to change the basis of our prosperity, then. The days of cheap energy are over for good. Instead of scrambling to stave off that inevitability for a few more years, as Palin intends, we need to boldly move in a new direction.

Palin correctly notes that "we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive!" No, the answer lies in: 1) conserving; 2) switching to renewable sources of energy. Palin says nothing about conserving. She can only think of oil and gas, oil and gas.

What sources for energy independence does Palin suggest?
- the "mountains of gas and oil", to be developed by the benevolent private sector, to feed the habit of "hungry markets across America";

-The "abundant coal" that "technology is continuously making...into a cleaner energy source." Note the choice of words: "cleaner" not "clean"-coal is very, very dirty. Digging it up devastates entire landscapes. Burning it pollutes excessively;

-"The possibility of nuclear energy." Sarah is just paying lip service to nuclear, knowing that, given their lengthy construction times, nuclear plants will not address our immediate energy addiction.

Palin laments that "job losses are so certain under this new...plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector...So much for creating jobs." So much for "moving in a new direction," Sarah! Build large-scale solar plants, pay farmers to create ethanol, submit govt. contracts for wind turbines-that will create a lot more jobs than the moribund traditional energy sector. (Though the guys who came up with those talking Chevron cars will need to find new employment.)

Palin exhorts us to tap into "the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil." How about the energy resource created right over our heads? Solar power, either through small-scale photovoltaic, or large-scale solar steam turbines, or the secondary power in grains and grasses, is virtually unlimited. The technologies are ready to go, today.

We dink around with balky hydrogen cells to run cars, when with a trickle of solar-generated electricity we can separate hydrogen from water, put it in a cylinder and run our existing car engines on it. Ethanol is exceedingly easy to make, does not-despite FUD-have to use more energy to produce than it yields (and it tastes good when mixed with Tang.) A govt. program that sponsored local workshops, farms and small business to built & operate small hydrogen, methane or ethanol producing machines, wind & water turbines would boost the economy at the grass roots level, and greatly reduce our destruction of the environment. The draw-back, apparently a deal-breaker for Palin, is that home energy production, be it solar panels, hydrogen or ethanol stills, not only gives Americans energy independence from foreign nations, but from the big energy corporations as well.

Palin assures us that her plan is the best for the environment. "We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia?" But Palin presents a false dichotomy: either produce our own fossil fuels, or let foreigners provide it. A third option is a combination of conservation and renewable energy. Why Sarah ignores this very real option one can only guess at.

Palin purports to deeply care about the environment, and implies that fellow Americans, like the executives at Exxon, care a lot, too. Choose Exxon or the Chinese, she demands! As much as Palin loves the great outdoors, I have trouble accepting her sincerity. Why? She has no problem raiding ANWR, is why. That "tiny, 2,000 acre" refuge -so tiny that no one will miss it, Sarah?-is a unique and pristine habitat. Sane, pragmatic environmentalists all agree that drilling in ANWR would permanently degrade it. It also has about 6 weeks' worth of oil. Where do we drill six weeks later, Sarah? My best friend used to sell family heirlooms to buy coke, but then again he had an addiction just like we do with oil.

According to Palin, the cap & trade plan would "clobber every American consumer with higher prices. The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet." While no govt. initiative should unfairly burden those already struggling, this argument against cap & trade is sleight-of-hand. If done properly, a cap & trade plan only changes the relative costs of different energy sources. The environmental cost of fuels are factored into their price. Fossil fuels, which have disastrous impacts, get more expensive. Under a good cap & trade plan, renewable energy ought to get cheaper. This benefits all of us in the long-run. Some increase in energy prices is inevitable. That's because we've been along avoiding the true environmental cost of fossil fuels and an unchecked appitite for energy. We need to address that or perish.

The most severe economic impact never gets mentioned-when we run out of oil, which we will do before long, be it domestic or foreign, we'll abruptly find ourselves in a World of Shit. And when coastal cities start flooding due to global warming, Wall Street brokers will have to wear scuba gear on the trading floor.


Palin is a straight talker, refreshingly unafraid to take a strong position. But on energy, her position is dead wrong. It's uninspired, panders to the energy cartels, and would lead us to certain ruin, both economically and environmentally. Obama offers little in the way of real 'change', but Palin's proposal to extricate us from our present predicament is simply 'more of the same.' She needs to expand her horizons a bit.

(c) 2009 by 'tamerlane.' All rights reserved.