Letter from David Kendall, Orchard Hill, September 24, 2010
There have been several letters lately about the merits of solar panels for power generation, about the subsidies granted to each industry, and whether or not there is a “level playing field.” Well, there isn’t.
Around World War II, we threw in our lot with oil, and it has worked spectacularly for us. We won the war, and even won the peace after the war, largely on the back of cheap oil. Our economy is soaked in and buoyed by it, and anything that is going to compete in the energy field has to contend with that economic and political reality. But there is a new reality facing us now—one of potentially catastrophic global warming, combined with explosive growth in energy consumption in China, which just surpassed the U.S. as the world’s leading consumer of energy.
When demand outstrips production and the price starts to rise—which according to the U.S. Joint Forces Command could happen as early as 2015—there is likely to be political conflict as well as serious economic disturbance. The only way to mitigate catastrophe on the environmental, economic, and political fronts is to move away from our old friend, hydrocarbon energy, as soon as possible. No one source can replace it—not solar, not wind, not waves or geothermal or biomass or conservation or even the “n” word—nuclear.
But if we want to maintain our lifestyle and not decimate our environment in the process, it must be replaced, starting now. Level playing field? No! Let’s tilt it as far as possible toward where we know we need to be in 10 years, and start creating the clean air, clean water, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be required to make it all happen. The alternative, of course, is to do nothing now, keep the market as it is, and just buy the technologies from the Chinese when we have no other choice. That is, if we can still breathe the air.
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