Richard K. Lester, PhD, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Governors Association on July 14, 2008, states:

I would like to discuss the role of technological innovation in
solving our energy problem, and, especially, the important question of
what role for policy – state as well as federal – in accelerating the
innovation process. I want to begin with three simple messages.

Recent progress in the clean technology field has been substantial.
New kinds of generating capacity are being added –in some cases,
notably wind, at an impressive rate. Costs are coming down, albeit
sometimes more slowly than was promised.

Investment in next-generation technologies is increasing. The strong
interest of the venture capital community is particularly welcome.

Ambitious targets are being set. Some of the most effective policy
interventions are occurring at the state and local levels. California
has been a leader. In my own state of Massachusetts, important clean
energy legislation was enacted just this month. Other states are on a
similar path.

That said –and here is my first message – these activities aren’t
remotely close to the scale of effort that will be required to solve
the problem.

My second message concerns the future of nuclear power and of coal-fired electricity with carbon capture and storage.

These two options won’t win any popularity contests, and some would
fiercely dispute that they belong in the clean technology category at
all. But without large-scale deployment of both, especially in the
critical 2020 to 2050 timeframe, it is unlikely –to the point of
implausibility –that the world will be able to avoid serious and
perhaps even disastrous ecological and economic damage from climate
change.

Coal is an abundant, relatively low-cost energy resource that is
widely distributed around the world, and in the US we depend on it for
half of our electricity. We cannot continue to burn it as we have, but
we cannot afford to turn our back on it either. We must therefore find
ways to capture carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and to
store the carbon dioxide safely underground, at reasonable cost.

Nuclear power is the only carbon-free energy source that is already
contributing on a large scale and that is also expandable with few
inherent limits. Public opinion has been gradually shifting in its
favor, but the failure to demonstrate and implement an effective final
disposal strategy for high-level waste remains a tremendous barrier to
public acceptance, no matter how many expert panels and commissions
opine that this is a technically feasible task.

The Yucca Mountain project may or may not meet the regulatory
criteria that will eventually be applied to it. But there is no doubt
that we can do better, and doing better should be a high priority.

No serious person would dispute the importance of these two
innovation goals: affordable carbon capture and storage, and safe,
implementable high-level nuclear waste disposal. But my basic message
here is that in both cases current U.S. policies are putting our nation
at least partly on the wrong track, and that this is almost certain to
cause further delays in the availability of viable coal and nuclear
power –delays that we can ill afford.

My third message is perhaps best conveyed by the poet Wallace
Stevens, born not far from here in Reading, PA. Stevens wrote of ‘the
lunatics of one idea . . . . in a world of ideas’. He was referring to
ideologues and fanatics, who, blinded by their single idea, couldn’t
see the world around them. But he might as well have been talking about
the energy debate, where such lunacy has unfortunately been all too
common.

The fact is that there is no single idea, no silver bullet, that
will solve the problem. First and foremost, we need new ways to use
energy more efficiently. But very likely also much bigger contributions
from solar, wind, biomass, nuclear, and also advanced fossil fuel
technologies. In our current circumstances, we can ill afford the
self-indulgence of those who –however well-intentioned – like to tell
the world that they are anti-this, or anti-that. (07/20/08)
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Aeldric writes: I thought I would share a personal anecdote and see who else is experiencing this strange phenomenon.

Almost 3 years ago I started seriously preparing for Peak Oil. I
installed water tanks, planted 30 fruit trees in our back yard, tore up
a lot of lawn, planted a permaculture garden, installed two giant fish
tanks, started breeding edible fish in an aquaponic set-up…. and, well, did everything else I could think of, regardless of cost.

I wanted to move quickly, so I didn’t economize, I spent
whatever it took to get quick results. I spent more than $10,000 a year
- sometimes a great deal more, I didn’t stop to count the dollars.

My wife was a little disturbed by this, but did not complain -
viewing it (I suspect) as a harmless hobby. I don’t smoke, I spend
about $10 a week on alcohol, don’t gamble, don’t put anything on credit
card, and earn a good salary – so she put up with this sudden,
uncharacteristic interest in cultivating fruit, brewing, gardening,
aquaponics, etc. because it really wasn’t a hardship for us.

But her tolerance was under sufferance, and Peak Oil was not
really something she wanted to talk about. Then, a few months ago,
things changed.

My wife saw the price of petrol shoot up. She started reading
disturbing stories in the news about food riots, fuel protests,
airlines going out of business, trucking firms struggling, and so on.
Pretty much exactly what I was talking about 3 years ago.

My first hint that things had changed occurred when we were
looking at items that we should be budgeting for in the upcoming month.
My wife’s proposals:
- $400 for a significant stockpile of food
- $690 for more secure gates

She also proposed that next month we earmark $1,000 for better
fences and a few hundred dollars for seeds, fertilizer and some
bare-rooted grapes.

We chatted until late about strategies for the years ahead, and even discussed Dmitri Orlov’s
views about collapse in the Soviet Union. Not a conversation that I had
expected, I must say. Nor was it our last conversation in this area. (07/20/08)
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Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write: Once again we’re closing the barn door after the horse is out and gone. In Washington, the Federal Reserve has finally acted to stop some of the predatory lending that exploited people’s need for money. And like Rip Van Winkle, Congress is finally waking up from a long doze under the warm sun of laissez faire economics. That’s French for turning off the alarm until the burglars have made their getaway.

Philosophy is one reason we do this to ourselves; when you worship market forces as if they were the gods of Olympus, then the gods can do no wrong — until, of course, they prove to be human. Then we realize we should have listened to our inner agnostic and not been so reverent in the first place.

But we also get into these terrible dilemmas — where the big guys step all over everyone else and the victims are required to pay the hospital bills — because we refuse to recognize the connection between money and politics. This is the great denial in democracy that may ultimately mean our ruin. We just don’t seem able to see or accept the fact that money drives policy. It’s no wonder that Congress and the White House have been looking the other way as the predators picked the pockets of unsuspecting debtors. Mega banking and investment firms have been some of the biggest providers of the cash vital to keeping incumbents in office. There isn’t much appetite for biting — or regulating — the manicured hand that feeds them.

Guess who gave the most money to candidates in this 2007-08 federal election cycle? That’s right, the financial services and real estate industries. They stuffed nearly $250 million dollars into the candidate coffers. The about-to-be-bailed-out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together are responsible for about half the country’s $12 trillion mortgage debt. Lisa Lerer of Politico.com reports that over the past decade, the two financial giants with the down home names have spent nearly $200 million on campaign contributions and lobbying. According to Lerer, “They’ve stacked their payrolls with top Washington power brokers of all political stripes, including Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis; Democrat Barack Obama’s original vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson; and scores of others now working for the two rivals for the White House.” …

Follow the money — it goes from your gas tank to the wine bars and steak houses of DC, where the payoffs happen. Or ponder that FISA surveillance legislation that just passed the Senate. It let the big telecommunications companies off the hook for helping the government wiretap our phones and laptops without warrants. Over the years those telecom companies have given Republicans in the House and Senate $63 million dollars and Democrats $49 million. No wonder that when their lobbyists reach out and place a call to Congress, they never get a busy signal. Do the same without making a big contribution, and you’ll be put on “hold” until the embalmer shows up to claim your cold corpse.

The late journalist Meg Greenfield once wrote that trying to get money out of politics is akin to the quest for a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. No matter how clever and ingenious the design, the squirrels are always one mouthful ahead of you. (07/20/08)
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