Everybody seems to have a solution to our energy problems. One solution. The only solution. And if it won???t amount to much, as opponents of drilling the OCS suggest, we shouldn???t consider it at all. Unless it is something like encouraging geothermal electric generation, in which case it should be subsidized and encouraged. I spent ten years of my career developing geothermal electric resources, ending in 1986. We discovered and developed a few geothermal sources. They were small and remote. Surely many more exist, but they too will likely be small and remote relative to our overall electric power needs. In the years since I left that endeavor there has been impressive progress in developing new geothermal sources for geothermal electric generation. But geothermal electric generation will never furnish as much energy to this country as drilling in the OCS. Yet in the great debate we will not hesitate to encourage (correctly) further geothermal development nor will we hesitate to turn our backs on other options which may similarly contribute to solving our problem.
The point of this is not so much an advocacy of drilling the OCS as illustrating the contradictions that are part and parcel of the silly arguments we use to justify our One Solution to the energy problem. Don???t develop the offshore OCS because it is too small to make a significant contribution but subsidize even smaller sources because they make us feel good. And these discussions go on with the entire array of One Solutions as if straying from our own individual understandings of the One true path would so distract us that we would be doomed to environmental and economic disaster. This kind of thinking is silly, selfish and ultimately destructive.
The solution (if such a term is even appropriate) will entail many efforts, some big and some small. In transition it should reasonably include the useful value of the old with the expected useful gains of the new. And more than anything else, it will require something from everyone including the ability to compromise and reasonably consider the merits of someone else???s One Solution.
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Now, 'Prius Republicans'?
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Senator Corker, a businessman by background and an innovative and sensible former mayor of Chattanooga, talked at length about the need for shrewd conservation and noncarbon answers. It made me realize that he was part of a new category of voter. You've heard of "NASCAR Democrats"? Well, Corker is a "Prius Republican."
Energy is not just an economic matter, but a key to national security, said Representative Harman. Some of the people and places on which we rely for that precious and ironically named commodity—light, sweet crude—are dedicated to destroying our way of life, she said.
I wondered aloud whether McCain would want to risk alienating voters in, say, Florida, by lifting the federal ban on offshore drilling. I wondered what GOP Gov. Charlie Crist might say. Well, we got our answer a few hours later. McCain came out for lifting the ban—and so did Crist. The following day, so did President George W. Bush.
Sen. Barack Obama immediately branded the new GOP position an outrage and a potential environmental disaster. He said there were better, more immediately beneficial ways to deal with the crisis, such as tax rebates and new tax cuts for lower-income Americans.
So let the debate begin—again. It's a fundamental one we've been having for decades over the role of resources our research-rich but not always careful and thrifty country. Shell, which sponsored the forum, used to feature in its ads a fellow called the Shell Answer Man. He may still be around, but now even an oil company stresses the need for "dialogue." That's a sign of the times—and a good one.
© 2008
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