PrintMay 12, 2011
Alternative Energy and the King Canute Strategy
For two centuries the American economy has been driven by ever cheaper energy, from the steam engine to modern coal and nuclear electric power, and of course petroleum-based transportation. As costs of production and transport declined, incomes rose. Now environmentalists seek to reverse the process. They propose to raise the cost of our cheapest and most important energy source, coal. Subsidies for production of wind and solar energy already in place induce investment in much higher cost solar and wind power energy. Since the most efficient locations for solar and wind energy do not coincide with concentrations of population and energy demand, transmission costs must be added to costs of production. It is the Industrial Devolution of the 21st century.Proponents of so-called "renewable energy" suffer from the delusion that it can replace a large share of our coal, oil, and nuclear energy. They ignore or deny the consequence: a...(Read Full Article)
