jaajoe.com - Politics

Our good friend Waldo Proffitt writes an interesting article about the pros of electricity provided by wind turbines in his column, "The Saudi Arabia of wind power".

Why do we compare American resources to Saudi Arabia? Is Saudi Arabia the new gold standard for energy? I prefer to think about America being the gold standard. We have been and we are.

Anyway, we agree with Waldo and T. Boone Pickens that we need to exploit wind power. That makes perfect sense. We need to find the optimal locations in America to place wind turbines and just do it. However, I am against subsidizing any form of energy production. T. Boone Pickens is asking tax payers to help fund his project with massive multi-billion dollar subsidies.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, "Mr. Pickens figures that [his plan] would save the U.S. about $300 billion a year, in addition to cleaning up the environment. But there’s a vicious circle in place: Wind can’t become a bigger part of the electricity mix until there’s a new batch of transmission lines, and nobody is willing to foot the bill for new power lines until there’s a lot of juice to move. Plus, a lot of communities hate the idea of big power lines plowing across their land. Mr. Pickens says he’s ready to pay for his own private transmission lines to get his wind farm spinning...

But to really take off nationwide, wind power needs a national solution, the Senate heard. Western governors are teaming up with counterparts in Mexico and Canada to build their own clean-energy networks across state boundaries. But so far, the patchwork of federal and state regulations and permits is acting as a brake on wind power’s growth. That means Washington has to act, Mr. Pickens said, by tackling prickly questions like eminent domain and right-of-way across big swathes of federal land."

Now for a reality check. Paul Driessen, from TownHall.com, writes, "Hydrocarbon fuels created America, gave us the technologies and living standards we enjoy today, enabled us to eradicate diseases that plagued earlier generations, and boosted our life expectancy from 50 in 1900 to nearly 80 today. They still provide 85% of our energy, and we could greatly reduce our reliance on oil imports if we would simply end the outrageous policies that keep our nation’s abundant energy resources locked up.

We have enough oil, natural gas, oil shale, coal and uranium to provide power for centuries. We have a growing consensus that we need to drill, onshore and off. But partisan intransigence and absurd environmental claims prevent us from utilizing them. Instead, we’re offered bromides like wind.

Wind contributes more every year to our energy mix. However, it still provides only 1% of our electricity – compared to 49% for coal, 22% for natural gas, 19% for nuclear and 7% for hydroelectric.

Wind power is intermittent, unreliable, noisy and expensive (even with subsidies). Many modern turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot-long, 7-ton blades that slice up raptors and other birds. They operate only 8 hours a day, on average, compared to 85% of the time for coal, gas and nuclear plants. They rarely provide power during peak summer daytime hours, when air-conditioning demand is highest, but wind speed is low to nonexistent.

Using wind to replace all gas-fired power plants would require some 300,000 1.5-MW turbines, covering Midwestern “wind belt” acreage equivalent to South Carolina. The noise, scenic impacts and bird kills caused by such an “eco-friendly” energy source defy imagination.

Building and installing these turbines requires 5 to 10 times more steel and concrete than is needed to build far more reliable coal or nuclear plants to generate the same amount of electricity, says Berkeley engineer Per Peterson. Add in the financing, steel and cement needed to build transmission lines from distant wind farms to urban consumers, and the effects multiply.

That means vastly more quarries, mines, cement plants and steel mills to supply those raw materials. But radical greens oppose such facilities. So under the Pickens proposal, we would likely import more steel and cement, instead of oil."

I am not against wind farms. I am against those that want "only" wind farms. I have said time and time again that the United States in general and Florida in particular must look at all forms of energy production. Florida has potentially billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas just off of our coast lines. These natural resources belong to all Floridians. By tapping into these offshore resources and refining them we would bring billions of dollars into our economy, create high paying jobs, diversify our economy, increase tax revenues, and help America reduce its dependence on foreign oil.

Nothing should be off of the table. Wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, oil, clean coal, oil shale, and biomass all have potential and must be developed. T. Boone Pickens is correct when he says we cannot drill our way out of this mess. We must drill, mine, build, invent, innovate, and use technology to get us out of this mess.

For those concerned about the environmental impact of drilling offshore Deroy Murdock of the Seattle Post Intelligencer reports, "U.S. offshore oil drilling is not perfectly tidy. It's only 99.999 percent clean. Indeed, since 1980 -- as MMS figures indicate -- 101,997 barrels spilled from among the 11.855 billion barrels of American oil extracted offshore. This is a 0.001 percent pollution rate. While offshore drilling is not 100 percent spotless, this record should satisfy all but the terminally fastidious. Ironically, in terms of oil contamination, Mother Nature is 95 times dirtier than Man. Some 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America's ocean floors each year. Compare this to the average 6,555 barrels that oil companies have spilled annually since 1998, according to MMS."

The Heritage Foundation states, "Congressman John Boehner of Ohio is set to introduce The American Energy Act, which will most importantly increase America’s energy supplies. The bill calls for leasing regulations for offshore natural gas by 2010, removing restrictions for outer continental shelf drilling, and opening up sections of ANWR for drilling.

As The Heritage Foundation’s Senior Policy Analyst Ben Lieberman has been arguing this even when gas prices were around $1 a gallon. More energy supplies, not more taxes and regulations, are what this country needs. It’s economics 101: expanding supply is the surest way to lower energy prices, and the quicker Congress moves to open up restricted areas, the quicker more resources will be available...

Where Boehner’s bill falters is the support for renewable fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol. Ethanol has been a prime culprit for rising food prices not only in America but also globally. The federal government has been trying since the 1970s to pick winners and losers by subsidizing unsuccessful alternative sources of energy and these sources still only comprise a small fraction of America’s energy profile."

Republicans have offered multiple bills in the Congress to develop all forms of energy. That is the best idea. That is the rational approach. That is what is best for the people. That is what we must do.