(Gosh, my husband has been busy today over at NRO - The Corner)
With Energy Secretary Steven Chu now being backed by Big Steel in calls for carbon trade wars with the developing world, it is hard to find anyone who has a clue about energy policy in any positions of power these days. You certainly won't find it at the White House if yesterday's announcements about cap-and-trade are anything to go by. Carter Wood has a great summary over at Shopfloor.org (and note that the intelligent questions came from a reporter for the Fargo Forum, where reality will bite first), and note this about Obama's attempts to blame the current Red River flooding on the global warming that we haven't seen for ten years.
Meanwhile, all those renewable-energy projects that we were promised from the stimulus look like never being built if the environmental movement (you know, the guys pushing for them) have their way. Senator Feinstein is blocking a solar project in the Mojave Desert because of damage to the local tortoise population. I'm going to shock everyone by quoting Gov. Schwarzenegger approvingly:If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it.
Similar story with wind power in the west. Yet even if the environmental movement weren't blocking everything, we couldn't get where they want to be their way. Even Steven Chu recognizes that the technology will require Nobel-caliber breakthroughs. Yet they aren't going to keep the lights on in the short term, when electricity becomes too expensive as Obama's cap-and-trade or regulations hit.
And hit they will. A new report by Moody's Investors Services finds that electricity rates will increase by 30% as a result. No wonder that Big Steel, as well as arguing for carbon tariffs, is also arguing that it should be given free permits to emit. Energy policy in this country has finally left sanity behind in the dark, which is where the rest of us will be soon.
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