Why Conservatives Are Bad on Energy

Editor’s Note: This post comes to us from the good folks over at Earth Island Journal. It’s a piece written by Tom Rooney, CEO of SPG Solar. Enjoy!

By Tom Rooney

Conservatives, take a breath. Let’s talk about energy. And why so many conservatives are so wrong — so liberal, even — on wind and solar energy.

Let’s start with a recent editorial from the home of “free markets and free people,” the Wall Street Journal. Photovoltaic solar energy, quoth the mavens, is a “speculative and immature technology that costs far more than ordinary power.”

So few words, so many misconceptions. It pains me to say that because, like many business leaders, I grew up on the Wall Street Journal and still depend on it.

But I cannot figure out why people who call themselves “conservatives” would say solar or wind power is “speculative.” Conservatives know that word is usually reserved to criticize free-market activity that is not approved by well, you-know-who.

Today, around the world, more than a million people work in the wind and solar business. Many more receive their power from solar.

Solar is not a cause, it is a business with real benefits for its customers.

Just ask anyone who installed their solar systems five years ago. Today, many of their systems are paid off and they are getting free energy. Better still, ask the owners of one of the oldest and most respected companies in America who recently announced plans to build one of the largest solar facilities in the country.

That would be Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal.

Now we come to “immature.” Again, the meaning is fuzzy. But in Germany, a country one-third our size in area and population, they have more solar than the United States. This year, Germans will build enough solar to equal the output of three nuclear power plants.

What they call immaturity our clients call profit-making leadership.

But let’s get to the real boogie man: The one that “costs far more than ordinary power.”

I’ve been working in energy infrastructure for 25 years and I have no idea what the WSJ means by the words “ordinary power.” But, after spending some time with Milton Friedman whom I met on many occasions while studying for an MBA at the University of Chicago, I did learn about costs.

And here is what every freshman at the University of Chicago knows: There is a difference between cost and price.

Solar relies on price supports from the government. Fair enough — though its price is falling even faster than fossil fuels are rising.

But if Friedman were going to compare the costs of competing forms of energy, he also would have wanted to know the cost of “ordinary energy.” Figured on the same basis. This is something the self-proclaimed conservative opponents of solar refuse to do.

But huge companies including Wal-Mart, IBM, Target and Los Gatos Tomatoes figured it out. And last year so did the National Academy of Sciences. It produced a report on the Hidden Costs of Energy that documented how coal was making people sick to the tune of $63 billion a year.

And that oil and natural gas had so many tax breaks and subsidies that were so interwoven for so long, it was hard to say exactly how many tens of billions these energy producers received courtesy of the U.S. Taxpayer.

Just a few weeks ago, the International Energy Agency said worldwide, fossil fuels receive $550 billion in subsidies a year — 12 times what alternatives such as wind and solar get.

Neither report factored in global warming or the cost of sending our best and bravest into harm’s way to protect our energy supply lines.

Whatever that costs, you know it starts with a T for trillion.

When you compare the real costs of solar with the fully loaded real costs of coal and oil and natural gas and nuclear power, apples to apples, solar is cheaper.

That’s not conservative. Or liberal. That comes from an ideology older and more reliable than both of those put together: Arithmetic.

———

Tom Rooney is President and CEO of SPG Solar.

photo credit: thanks to Jeff Kubina via flickr for the image of a solar house

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

William H.

2:00AM PDT on Sep 24, 2010

Arithmetic is definitely NOT an ideology: it's
a given structure in our lives, as in "if a + b =
c" and a=2 and b=3", it is NOT ideological that
"c=5", except in a number base less than 4.
in which case it's "10", which in itself is algorithmic
not.ideological.

send a green star

gerlinde p.

10:08AM PDT on Sep 12, 2010

thanks for the article,

Elisabeth T.

2:36PM PDT on Sep 11, 2010

Thanks for this article, very interesting

Teresa W.

12:01PM PDT on Sep 11, 2010

Conservatives are always bad. :-)

Jo B.

11:04AM PDT on Sep 10, 2010

Thank you so much for sharing this interesting article x

Borg D.

3:12AM PDT on Sep 10, 2010

Thanks !!

Cassidy M.

1:03AM PDT on Sep 10, 2010

Great article! I like the reasoning behind this. It is true that conservatives are not the only ones backing the oil industry. I think everyone from all points on the spectrum could benefit from more exposure to the dirty, hidden costs of fossil fuels.

Lynn A.

5:06PM PDT on Sep 9, 2010

Helloooo-conservatives are negative on anything that takes money off their profit line. And for sure the liberals haven't put anything viable on the table in awhile.

Past Member .

3:23PM PDT on Sep 9, 2010

I believe we can nudge the ignorant naysayers in the right direction by not shopping in their businesses suing the wealthy who made profit ,for health care costs due to dirty energy and other coercive measures (nudge nudge wink wink).

1:48AM PDT on Sep 9, 2010

Wind, interestingly, is a very mature technology. Unfortunately the science places severe limits on what can be done with it. Wind carries very little energy so even with 100% conversion, it would still not amount to much. However, windfarms are nowhere remotely close to that for several reasons: To avoid turbulence (which would wreck the energy-production), turbines are placed at least 5 blade-lengths apart. They also have to be shut off whenever the wind is too strong or the internal mechanism would be damaged.

The major omission is an argument against these energy-sources which Rooney completely ignored. Consider a place where it snows in the winter. Forget about solar power. Now imagine the roads there are not perfect, or the wind is irregular (which can both be caused by geographical features). Forget about wind.

I oppose the use of coal for power-generation as it is dirty and causes health-problems. I support reduction in the use of oil because I do not like the attitudes of many OPEC countries and would rather the West did not depend on them. Still, we need a viable alternative. Germany is a world-leader in the use of wind and solar power, and as of 2008 got an underwhelming 7.6% of its power from them.