New technology is the result of technology and economics, not politics

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New technology is the result of technology and economics, not politics

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 | Economics, Environment |

“When was the last time human beings modernized our energy sources by making older power sources more expensive?” [asks Michael Shellenberger, co-founder of the tiny, Oakland-based think tank the Breakthrough Institute in 2002 with and Ted Nordhaus] “And, of course, by now you probably know that the answer is never.”

Personal computers didn’t take off because there was a tax on typewriters, he says. And the Internet didn’t sprout up because the government made telegraphs more expensive.

And here’s my standard objection to the government trying to make clean energy what we use. If solar, wind, et al are so darned ready to pick up the slack from coal, oil, InsertEvilTechnologyHere, why haven’t they already done it somewhere in the world?

You can’t blame our current energy use on evil U.S. companies or evil U.S. policies. There are plenty of non-U.S. countries with money and engineering talent - China, the U.K., Japan, Sweden, France, Finland, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, etc.

If it were economical to use solar and wind to power a first world economy someone other than the U.S. would have done it by now out of self-interest. The fact that it hasn’t happened yet suggests that the technology and/or economics isn’t there yet.

The one energy source that is more common outside of the U.S. is nuclear. Nuclear energy in the U.S. was curtailed by excess regulation, political considerations, and NIMBYism.

5 Comments to New technology is the result of technology and economics, not politics

persimmon
June 26, 2009

Surely you know the answer to this. The coal and oil industries do not pay the costs of their pollution. Those are externalized as rising health costs, declines in recreation and tourism, etc. We attempt to link the costs of highway construction to gasoline through a tax, and it makes perfect sense to internalize the health costs and other risks and costs into the industries causing them.

A market without externalized costs will find cleaner power faster than one that allows free pollution.

Les Jones
June 26, 2009

The obvious rejoinder is that the U.S. isn’t an isolated economy. We have to compete with China, India, and other countries that aren’t going to burden their industries with high energy costs.

That creates two sets of problems. The obvious one is economic. The U.S. becomes less competitive and our citizens suffer economically.

The second problem is environmental. If the high cost of energy in the U.S. drives production to China or India, there’s no environmental benefit to making that product. In fact, there may be more environmental impact because China and India have much less environmental protection than we do.

Alcibiades
June 26, 2009

Gee, if only someone passed regulations requiring certain features on coal plants to reduce toxic emissions, then we could worry less about them “not paying the cost of pollution”.

persimmon
June 29, 2009

Not everything can be exported to Asia. If Americans were to use energy more efficiently and conservatively and incorporate low yield technologies like wind and solar into low consumption applications like homes, the resulting drop in demand for coal could help industry stay competitive with overseas production, which always has transportation and importation costs working against it.

Some of the costs of high emissions fuels are indeed global and need global solutions. It used to be that wealthy countries would lead by example on such matters and help developing countries bypass such wasteful phases, but we seem to have ceded that role to Europe around the time we spitefully renamed our favorite potato dish.

Les Jones
June 29, 2009

Again, if it’s economical to use wind and solar, why aren’t other countries doing it to any significant degree? As of 2004 wind, solar, geothermal and wood represented just 1% of total worldwide energy use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2004_Worldwide_Energy_Sources_graph.png