A Funny Thing About Reality – Not All You Hear Is As You Might Be Lead To Believe
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
In spite of the hype associated with alternative energy, there are some details of reality that we need to recognize as factors that should make us understand that everything about “green” isn’t the Utopian end that we might be lead to believe. This piece in the Sunday (April 25, 2010) Washington Posts calls attention to at least five factors that need to be considered and understood as part of the complete picture of green energy. Robert Bryce. The author of the piece deserves credit for documenting these points (although there is probably even more that’s out there for coming to grips with the total picture).
It isn’t that alternative energy isn’t a worthy pursuit or something that shouldn’t remain in the mix of continued development. As has been pointed out many other times and by any number of observers, the emphasis needs to be on making use of all the energy sources that we have available. Attempts to restrict traditional energy sources from being used, to force the adoption of alternative energy is a mistaken, anti-prosperity technique which should be rejected. Government planners or others with an agenda to undermine the ability of our economy to perform at maximum output cannot be allowed to accomplish their end desires at the expense of a healthy, productive private sector.
We have significant energy reserves within our country to use and alternative energy resources, transitioning to a market-oriented approach should become the nation’s comprehensive energy policy. Unless economic and other factors of reality are included in the development process for alternative energy resources we’re going to keep pretending that going green is a solution to something that it can’t be.
In spite of the hype associated with alternative energy, there are some details of reality that we need to recognize as factors that should make us understand that everything about “green” isn’t the Utopian end that we might be lead to believe. This piece in the Sunday (April 25, 2010) Washington Posts calls attention to at least five factors that need to be considered and understood as part of the complete picture of green energy. Robert Bryce. The author of the piece deserves credit for documenting these points (although there is probably even more that’s out there for coming to grips with the total picture).
It isn’t that alternative energy isn’t a worthy pursuit or something that shouldn’t remain in the mix of continued development. As has been pointed out many other times and by any number of observers, the emphasis needs to be on making use of all the energy sources that we have available. Attempts to restrict traditional energy sources from being used, to force the adoption of alternative energy is a mistaken, anti-prosperity technique which should be rejected. Government planners or others with an agenda to undermine the ability of our economy to perform at maximum output cannot be allowed to accomplish their end desires at the expense of a healthy, productive private sector.
We have significant energy reserves within our country to use and alternative energy resources, transitioning to a market-oriented approach should become the nation’s comprehensive energy policy. Unless economic and other factors of reality are included in the development process for alternative energy resources we’re going to keep pretending that going green is a solution to something that it can’t be.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 4/25/2010 3:52 PM 
Categories: Alternative Energy
Tags: Green Energy Economic Prosperity Government Central Planning
Categories: Alternative Energy
Tags: Green Energy Economic Prosperity Government Central Planning
History has proven your opinion incorrect. The U.S. can no longer depend on fossil fuels as our major source of energy. We've been pummeled financially by this dependence, and forced to expend the lives of our servicemen and women to keep oil company profits safe for a privileged few. Several years ago Oil Tycoon T Boone Pickens stated we had reached "peak oil," i.e., the highest volume of oil we will ever be able to access, and from that point on we will be seeing a steady shrinking of supply.
The nuclear energy providers blew their credibility in the 80s when they abandoned construction of several huge reactors back east due to massive costs overruns, and a couple of ensuing minor accidents like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Nuclear energy proponents also have done nothing to find a remedy for "spent" fuel rods, the most toxic of all toxic wastes.
The deaths of the coal miners in West Virginia week before last, and the explosion, fire and sinking aboard an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico that cost 11 lives, and the massive oil spill threatening the Gulf Shore are all very good reasons why traditional sources of energy have written their own epitaphs.
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