Environment/Energy · Politics/Government

If you were energy czar, how would you change U.S. energy policy?

Eric Ringham January 30, 2012, 5:00 AM Jan 30, 2012

President Obama called last week for an “all-out, all-of-the-above strategy” for the development of U.S. sources of energy. Today’s Question: If you were energy czar, how would you change U.S. energy policy?

About the blogger

Eric Ringham

eringham@mpr.org

Hiram

The best answer if not the only answer to our energy problems is to reduce consumption, and that’s also the solution that most terrifies energy producers both foreign and domestic. If we simply made a bit more of an effort to be energy efficient, oil markets, because of the impact on marginal prices, would collapse around the world. Because oil producers understand that, they make enormous efforts to keep energy prices relatively low, limiting the short term impact on prices, an effective energy conservation would yield. And that is why usually intransigent energy producing countries are so eager to pick up the production slack should there be a cutoff in oil from Iraq.

Jane

Conservation will have the most immediate and long lasting impact on energy consumption. Make energy policy about energy, not jobs

GaryF

I wouldn’t be the energy czar. Czars make for bad government.

Ken

Remember that 70’s bumper sticker..

“Eat more beans, America needs the gas”

40 yrs later and we’re still ‘talking’ about it.

Energy is a commodity. World consumption/demand controls the price. Hiram and Jane nailed it. Conservation is something that we can control..

david

1) End all oil and ethanol subsidies.

2) Double (at least) the gas tax.

3) Increase gas guzzler tax up to 28 MPG (from 22.5 new I believe)

4) Get back on track with CAFE standards, there’s no reason why we all are not driving 40+ MPG cars by now.

5) Move all commercial vehicles to natural gas.

6) All new homes/buildings must meet a minimum level of energy efficiency standards, and include some form of solar energy generation.

7) Keep promoting renewable energy, call out the anti-renewable rhetoric for what it really is.

8) Really consider lowering the speed limits on the freeways. The difference between 60 MPH and 70 MPH can gain almost 20% increase in MPG in most cars. That’s like paying $2.64 per gal when everyone else is paying $3.30. That alone would almost eliminate foreign oil dependency.The increase in commute times is mostly psychological. Car’s top speeds should be limited.

This list is only a start.

Jim Williams

Put lots of research money into LENR and don’t bother with anything else.

Steve the Cynic

Emphasize conservation. We were on the right track in the 70s, but then got complacent and backslid in the late 80s and 90s when oil was temporarily cheap. When I was shopping for a car in the early 00s, the salesmen laughed at me when I said I wanted something that would get near 40mpg on the highway, like my old Japanese car used to get. The mileage boasted by today’s high efficiency cars is only marginally better than what was available in 1984.

Steve the Cynic

“Put lots of research money into LENR and don’t bother with anything else.”

You’ve got to be kidding. Our main problem right now is that we have most of our energy eggs in the one basket of fossil fuels, and you wan to move them all into cold fusion, a basket that might not even exist?

Surley the Cynic

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/another-blow-for-the-climateers.php
david

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/another-blow-for-the-climateers.php

Posted by Surley the Cynic | January 30, 2012 8:34 AM

If it’s in the powerline blog, and no where else, it must be true. They wouldn’t have a political ulterior motive now would they???
Bob Moffitt

I would seek Rolf Westgard’s opinion, and then do the opposite. (Just kidding, Rolf)

David: #1 The ethanol subsidies have ended. Didn’t you notice? Oil still gets its special tax breaks, though. #6 Not practical. CNG should be part of the mix, though, along with propane and biodiesel, as well as EV and hybrid engines for short-haul commercial vehicles.
Craig

Oil is strategic; no country can defend itself or project power without it. The US should encourage the world to rely on (and deplete) oil, position ourselves to do without it, and keep our natural reserves in the ground as a deterrent to aggression.
Surley the Cynic

Powerline is just commenting on the data provided by the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit.

The U of EA is the “experts” that first told us global warming was happening. Now they are telling us it isn’t happening.

Don’t shoot the messenger, they just provide the data, Powerline just provides news that NPR doesn’t want you to hear.
david

Do you even listen to this station Surley the Cynic, or just post BS on this webpage everyday. MPR (not NPR, but we’re not on NPR’s web page) did mention this dubious article, and even posted an article about the sudo-science involved in it. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/updraft/
Joe Schaedler

I would expand investment in and subsidies for renewable energy – especially solar power. Renewable energy needs to be developed and implemented for the welfare & security of the nation, and it will not be adequately invested in by the private sector on its own.

I would also advocate for increased gas taxes, to incentivize Americans to wean themselves off of traditional oil consumption (and to also pay for the renewable energy investment). Fossil fuel resources are too limited and environmentally damaging to remain as subsidised as they currently are.

Thirdly, I would allow the creation of the XL Pipeline, in order to expand our use of oil from non-hostile sources, specifically enabling us to better strengthen our stance of isolating Iran for its inexcusable nuclear ambitions.
Kirk

We would proceed full-steam-ahead toward fully renewable energy.

All of the ridiculous, unnecessary subsidies to the corrupt, polluting oil companies would be ended YESTERDAY, and all of those funds would be channeled directly into R&D for renewables.

I should think this would be a major-league DUH!
Duke Powell

If I were Energy Czar???

I would put a premium on cost and reliability. Consequently, green energy would be out.

Lots of Coal, Hydro, Nuclear and Natural Gas.

Consumer prices would plummet.
Bill

I agree with david on most all of his comments, I’ve been living that way all my life. I have a Prius, solar panels, wind generator, (no electricity bill, a credit instead), I have a $10/mo natural gas bill, and I love it. Most anyone can do it if you put your mind to it.
GregX

Implement a standing tax-credit to home-owners for energy efficient upgrades. Allow it to apply to solar, wind, insulation, windows/doors, design. If American homes used 25% less energy ( each) in 15 years – that would mean our power-plants could deliver lower cost power to our industrial and manufacturing sector. Emphaize “passive” energy efficiency – anytime you spend power to save power – it darn well better have a high ROC( return on cost). Heavily advocate for distributed workforce for office-worker based businesses. Cutting out transportation from home to work – saves time, fuel and money. Revamp the business day from the current 9-5 TO any 8 hours between 7:00 AM – 9:00 PM. The work needs to get done – forcing someone to sit in a chair for 8 hours straight is an attendance measure – NOT productivity. All of this can be done with existing technology. Lastly I’d invest in development and deployment of traveling wave reactor TWR – which use low end nuke fuel, don’t require exotic management and generate less waste ( they consume nuclear)
GregX

duke – I would put a premium on cost and reliability …………… yeah – about that – after the decade of acid rain, rising general lung problems and – COAL is a darn hard plant to site — now if your definition of reliability includes guarenteed cancer in downwind towns and cities – well shoot … your on the mark. FRacking necessary to create the GAS boom now appears to be generator of sub-surface problems with aquifers and local quakes. and Traditional nuclear – has no place to put the waste fuel that they cannot use. … sooo….. your general approach seems to ignore the ugly side of the coin …
david

Awesome Bill, you’re living my dream.
Steve the Cynic

No true cynic would be persuaded by Powerline’s ideological bullshit, Surley.
Lawrence

If I were an energy czar, I wouldn’t change US policy at all. I’ve been making record profits since George Bush was elected in 2000. Thanks to the War with Iraq, I have access to more oil fields, and the Republican Party continues to do my bidding by denouncing Global Warming and advocating for more oil drilling in the States. I’ve even managed to get the Big Automakers to stop working on an electric or solar powered car, and I threw a hand grenade into ethanol. Now, states are backing away from that. Heck, if I keep doing what I’m doing now, blame oil prices on some foreign disaster because Americans won’t research it, and throw lobby dollars at the Republican Party, I’ll still be one of the richest countries in the world 10 years from now.
Philip

Czar? No, I’d need to be king. Then we can talk.
Lance

Frack, baby, frack!!
KevinVC

It is clear anyone in the position will have no power.

You need a Energy Dictator.

Issues we have is lobbying. As if that has changed, right? Well it has, its worse.

Oil industry is entrenched with a bonus that was ONLY intended to get them going late in the 19th and early 20th century.

Now we have increasing number of earthquakes due to Fracking….

It is clear using a ‘limited’ supply of energy (any for of oil, gas, or even WATER) will continue to the wrong direction.

(FYI, there is actually a water shortage, fresh water.)

Energy such as Wind (A great source), Solar (always improving, as if it was not already great!), and bio-fuels will be the ONLY thing that should get any subsidy from the government.

Time to take the Oil companies out to the shed and grab the shotgun.
Lance

Actually, GregX makes some pretty good points. Take those, add in the passive solar construction as a more empasized technique and promote energy conservation, but you can’t force conservation without significant backlash.

In the short term, we’re still addicted to oil, so, for the sake of our own national security, we should be extracting oil from the Gulf, from North Dakota shale, and building the pipeline from our closest ally, Canada.

At the same time, we should continue to explore alternatives that show the promise of producing more energy than the energy consumed to produce it.
Joe Padden

Soy beans grown in the US could fuel diesels

Ask for the oil lobby’s help or they will make the plan fail no tax on the fuel.

Grow sugar cane for alcohol to fuel gas cars like Brazil and Venezula. no tax for 20 years. Get the oil lobby to help. Keep the cash in the US
Joe Padden

LED bulbs. Make some tax incentives for plants based in the US. Make some loans to get these plants built.

Sorry Enron we do not need compact florescent bulbs put them by the 8 track cassets
John

Its so funny everyone’s waiting around for Government to help US. Energy independence is common sense. We have dumbed down the people of this country so much that they can’t think for themselves.

I have virtually NO energy bills. You have to want it. Not enough people care to want it.
Wally

End ALL energy subsidies, to Big Oil, Big Wind, Big Electric.

And quit talking about electric cars as Clean and Green. They’re not. Electric cars just move the pollution somewhere else.

Shut off the lights in Vegas, or at least impose a stiff tax on all that garish lighting to clean up the stacks at the power plants. Why should other people have to breath the smoke from the coal-fired plants to keep The Strip lit?