DFA has invited all the Democratic presidential candidates to speak directly to their members about specific issues. Here is Bill Richardson’s response on energy:
His energy plan is posted here. It’s quite aggressive — and why shouldn’t it be?
Please share widely!
The fact that he only decided yesterday to stay away from racist-boosting Fox News, and let Clinton, Obama and Edwards take the lead on this important issue, is a disgrace. I like Richardson, but he needs to get out ahead on some issues — energy, perhaps? — or he’ll never get traction and will sink beneath the waves. What does he have to lose?
he beat Obama and Clinton to the punch on the late and unlamented Fox/Nevada debate (though he trailed Edwards).
Did he really say that? What does he mean?
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Is it “The USA should spend lots of time and money on this technology?” Or is it, “Rather than tick off Big Coal, I’m going to be officially in favor of coal so long as it’s really (loophole alert) carbon free?”
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There is a world of difference in those two positions.
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I like the guy and his energy platform generally, but I’d really like to know.
But how to do it?
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We’re using oil four ways: * transportation * heating * generating electricity * as an input for manufacturing: plastics, lubricants, etc.
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The biggie is the first one — but because it’s distributed across 300 million people and because cars hang around for about 15 years, it’s the most difficult to change quickly. Some proposals: * up CAFE. Now. Reduce the FlexFuel alternatives, and crank up the truck mpg requirement faster than autos. * up the gas guzzler tax on autos [cars like Ferarris pay this, and its on the order of $1300-$2100 to the price], raise the mpg requirement, and expand the base to include light trucks. * Raise the gas tax. Yeah, it sucks because it’s regressive. Fine — take the revenue, and increase standard deductions on the Federal Tax return. Whatever. The bottom line is, the more expensive gas is, the less people will use. * Expand public transit. This means local [subway], regional [commuter rail], and city to city [high speed rail: Acela, CalTrans, etc]. * Make cycling more attractive by changing zoning laws to require indoor bicycle storage, showers, reduce sprawl, create safe bicycle commuter trails, etc. * Require tUS gov’t to start purchasing alternative fuel vehicles, high mpg vehicles, etc. * The double nickel (55 mph) would save about 10% of fuel on highways — roughly 5% overall.
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Now, the other three. Heating is tough — New England uses lots of oil to heat our homes, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. Increasing the energy efficiency requirements helps, and you could prohibit oil heating install in new buildings, and that would help in the long run… but if that switches folks to oil/coal produced electricity, you haven’t done much to help. In New England [where lots of oil heat is], we use less coal than most parts of tUSA, but more oil to generate electricity. That’s the next part.
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Want to be really aggressive about fighting global warming? No new oil or coal fired electrical generation without strings attached. Want to build a 1000 MW coal-fired plant? Great. You must also build 250 MW of alternative energy plants, and take a 250 MW coal or oil plant offline. This will help to remove the stock of grandfathered inefficient plants, replacing them with newer, more efficient, cleaner burning plants and increasing the renewable energy supply. We can’t block the construction of all new coal and oil fired plants immediately — there’s just too much demand growth and renewable energy industries can’t expand fast enough. But, we can use a carrot/stick method to force the old plants off line and build more renewable than would have been built otherwise. Forcing more customers to go to time-based-metering would help reduce the peak demands, thereby reducing the need to run the really inefficient, really dirty peaking plants, and serve to make solar more attractive on price, and wind and nuclear more attractive on load balancing. For other electrical improvements, crank up EnergyStar requirements, broaden the program, and start requiring it in new construction.
I agree with Richardson — we can do it. But, it will require a series of legislated requirements, across all sectors of energy use. We’ve got to help people reduce their demand through efficiency standards, alternatives in transportation, and changes in zoning laws. We’ve got to increase our supply of renewable energy, ultimately decreasing the amount of carbon-based energy we use. We’ve got to do it quickly, and we’ve got to do it nationwide.