What Is a ‘Good’ Energy Plan?

by Clif Holliday

Maybe after the last eight years of absolute inattention to our energy problems, anything would look like a good energy plan. However, past that reaction, perhaps one still should ask the question. I asked my in-house expert, my lovely wife Babs, what she thought about energy. She said, "I don’t have enough anymore."

This discussion started when I was recounting some of the recent editorials and columns in the Star-Telegram. It seems they think that President Bush’s energy plan is terribly flawed. Instead of his plan they suggest, somewhat vaguely, that we should be spending more on conservation. They portray a belief that an emphasis on developing a long term energy infrastructure is inherently evil. (Of course, one may question the sincerity of their positions, because they react the same way to any Republican initiative.)

While Northeast Texas has been more fortunate than many (luck really has had nothing to do with it – just good energy decisions) and we have been spared the extreme misfortunes of California, we still have had our energy shocks recently:

• Gasoline prices have spiked to nearly $2.00 a gallon for premium.
• Natural Gas prices are at all time highs.
• TXU has just recently indicated that summer cooling bills would be 20%-30% higher than last year.
• We are uncertain about the impact of de-regulation of electricity.
• Most recently, Tom Thumb has dropped its gas discount from 5 cents (and sometimes 10 cents) a gallon to just 3 cents.

Continuing the conversation, I explained, ‘No, I mean energy that runs our house and cars."

After a minute, she replied (in a tone that said I should have known the obvious answer,) "I just want to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and I’d like my electric bill to be as low as possible." (She doesn’t think about gasoline, because it mysteriously appears in her car.)

I believe in this answer is a gem of truth, that our politicians and ‘energy experts’ seem to miss. (Particularly the experts that qualify everything with something like, "…yes, but we need to do something, but that may endanger the snail darters (or whales, or whatever is in fashion today.") The gem, and real point of Babs’ comment, is that every plan needs an objective or goal. The goal Babs was espousing was simple, and one that I believe most Americans would agree – The goal of our energy plan should be to have plenty of cheap energy for everyone. Naturally, we will qualify this to say that we will make only sensible (and sensibly evaluated) tradeoffs with environmental issues, but the goal should remain cheap, abundant energy.

As noted above President Bush’s recently announced energy plan has been criticized by the ‘experts’ of one of our local papers, as not containing ‘enough’ conservation. (Although by some ways of counting, it had more conservation measures than anything else.) Much of this criticism seems to center on the failure to emphasize a particular author’s favorite conservation approach. The President’s plan has even been criticized because it dared to notice that we have developed a major shortage of infrastructure regarding energy production and distribution – the things necessary to assure an abundance of cheap energy.

It is this last point that really is the nub of the arguments. It seems to come down to a disagreement between those who advocate conservation and those who advocate efficiency. These two words have come to have special meanings. In the old world if one used a more efficient process, then he conserved energy, and thus was a conservationist, but no more.

In today’s world, the ‘conservationists’ are only interested in not using energy (and especially not doing anything that may make more energy available.) Cheap, abundant energy is an anathema to their goals. They seem to take their position as if they have the only ‘truth’ and any one who dares to suggest anything contrary is crazy. We have a wonderful example of the results of this thinking in California today. They wouldn’t allow new power plants for ten years: they refused to build new high lines in their state: they wouldn’t allow large enough pipe lines to be built to bring in natural gas; they wouldn’t allow off-shore drilling. What they have done is become one of the most conserving states in the Union. (They ranked second only to Rhode Island in per capita electricity usage according to one conservationist group.) This extensive conservation hasn’t helped them.

California is now learning the real meaning of conservation – don’t use energy. High prices are the most direct way to achieve conservation (remember Gore’s support for permanent $2.00 plus gas in his book.) Now that energy prices have really gone up, California is learning a real conservation lesson. It is reported that this state (as noted, already one of the most conserving in the country) has reduced its use of electricity by 11% since the first of 2001. .

Efficiency means using less power to do the same job. (To really draw the comparison, conservation has come to mean not doing the job at all.) Efficiency does not imply a moral judgment about the inherent ‘goodness’ of the job. It is rather just a measure of the energy expended to do a particular job.

As one last example of the difference between conservation and efficiency, I just recently purchased my second SUV. The new vehicle has gas mileage that is about 50% better than the old one, so it is very efficient in terms of the job to be done (providing the kind of transportation I want.) However, in the view of the conservationist, it is an extreme waste of gasoline for me to have the SUV at all. In their view I should be driving a Yugo (or something similar – tiny, uncomfortable, and underpowered.) Still better, in the view of some of the more radical conservationists, I should be walking.

So what makes a ‘good’ energy plan? I obviously can’t answer the question in the few words of a short note, but there certainly is one point that can be made. As with any plan, the first priority is to understand the desired goal. If conservation is one of the goals (as conservation has come to be understood) it means that the goal is to not use energy.

My view is that the goal of a national energy plan should primarily, be to have an abundant supply of cheap energy for all. The availability of energy is the prerequisite for economic growth. Of course, the plan should consider the most efficient ways (including all kinds of ‘new’ technologies) of developing energy resources; of producing energy; and of distributing it. The plan should also consider, in some reasoned, balanced way, any environmental impacts (and there are always environmental impacts – the question is being able to unemotionally evaluate these impacts, and of using the best technology to efficiently ameliorate those impacts, where justified.)

As Babs said, "Cool in the summer, warm in winter, and keep my electric bill low."