Over the past decade, companies from around the world have begun investing in solar projects, many of them in the United States, as they recognize the possibility for a booming market in solar technology.
While solar and wind are intermittent technologies that cannot produce energy twenty-four hours per day like a coal plant or nuclear reactor, they will be an essential part of our energy future. But their development requires us to rethink many aspects of our current system, including litigation reform.
Here’s an example why: a recently proposed wind project in West Virginia would have been another big step toward making wind power more affordable and the technology even more efficient. But environmental groups sued the developer, Beech Ridge Energy, claiming the project would harm bats. The judge, Roger W. Titus, sided with the environmental groups and ruled against responsible American energy development, killing the plan for more than 120 wind turbines.8
Similarly, in California, solar power company BrightSource Energy proposed building in the Mojave Desert three solar plants with enough energy to power 142,000 homes, a project that would generate billions of dollars in revenue. The site was perfect, as the Mojave has powerful sunlight every day, and the proposed site already has transmission lines. Predictably, radical environmental groups are trying to block the plan, citing the alleged impact on an estimated twenty-five desert tortoises.9
If we cannot develop a major solar power project in the middle of the desert, then where can we?
Many of these environmental groups are the same ones pushing for devastating new energy taxes like cap and trade, claiming economic punishment will spur investment in environmentally virtuous solar and wind technologies.
But their lawsuits against the very solutions they propose reveal their real motives. They are not interested in getting energy from alternative sources. Opposing nearly any form of economic development, they aim to use government regulation and litigation to punish Americans who use energy.
Solutions for More American Renewable Energy
• Enact a loser-pays law. This would force the loser in an environmental lawsuit to pay all the legal costs for the other side. Guaranteeing only the most serious lawsuits will be brought to court, it will reduce the numerous frivolous lawsuits every year that solely aim to stall development, including those blocking renewable energy.
• Make permanent the wind and solar tax credits. Having a consistent tax policy for renewable energy will provide certainty for future investment in these vital technologies.
• Develop long-distance transmission lines. Our potential in renewable energy is enormous, but technologies like wind and solar are limited geographically. With the proper connections, major urban centers in America could utilize renewable energy produced hundreds of miles away.
BIOFUELS
Biofuels are best thought of as an organic use of solar power. Instead of man-made solar arrays, corn and other plants (and algae) provide a biological factory for converting solar power into usable energy.
Biofuels offer America an opportunity to use our unrivaled agricultural skills to create pure American energy. In 2007 we produced over 6 billion gallons of ethanol, a number we can expect to rise in the future as technology improves and the biofuels themselves become more efficient.
The projected explosion in corn yields per acre guarantee there will be enormous increases in potential biofuel production (especially ethanol) in the next two decades. In fact, without the growth in biofuel yields, the American grain farmer will drown in a glut of production, and farm incomes will collapse.
In 2008, the ethanol industry was responsible for creating more than 200,000 new American jobs and adding more than $60 billion to our economy. Ethanol fuels also eliminated the need to import over 300 million barrels of foreign oil.10 Furthermore, we can expect the next generation of biofuels to create even more jobs, be dramatically less expensive, and provide greater efficiency.
Cellulosic ethanol has the potential to fundamentally change how we fuel our cars and trucks. Because they can be processed from agricultural byproducts (including corn stalks), cellulosic fuels could be made anywhere in the country, not just in the traditional Midwestern farming states.
Although cellulosic fuels are currently more expensive than gasoline, rapid advances in technology suggest this type of fuel could be commercially competitive in the near future.
But once again, we will not achieve the necessary advancements in biofuels by taxing other American energy producers.
In fact, one breakthrough has already occurred without any new taxes. Mark Holtzapple, a professor at Texas A&M University, has invented a system of converting garbage to bio-gasoline called the MixAlco process, which uses bacteria found commonly in soil as the catalyst for the initial chemical reaction. When fully developed, Holtzapple hopes to produce about 100 gallons of bio-gasoline per day from his experimental facility.11 His company recently signed a contract with WasteManagement, the largest garbage collection company in the United States, emphasizing not only the viability of this technology, but also its potential for growth.
The MixAlco process was not mandated by the government, nor was it the result of penalizing other types of transportation fuels. Instead, it arose from the ingenuity that we must incentivize throughout America, an ingenuity that will solve our energy crisis faster and cheaper than any approach that relies on taxes and regulations.
Solutions for More American Biofuels
• Create an open fuel standard. An Open Fuel Standard would incentivize the creation of flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs), which can use different types of fuels. An FFV costs only about $100 more than a traditional, gasoline-only vehicle, and an Open Fuel Standard would provide Americans more choice and more price competition at the pump.
• Provide refundable tax credits for alternative energy vehicles. Since U.S. auto companies get billions in tax credits but still aren’t seeing profits, the federal government could make these credits refundable, turning the incentives into useful money. This would not only include biofuel vehicles such as FFVs, but also hydrogen vehicles and electric cars.
• Incentivize new fuel distribution stations. Any company that invests in ethanol or hydrogen supply stations should receive a substantial tax break, as should any company investing in new fuel pipelines.
HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
Hydrogen fuel cells, especially in vehicles, offer obvious benefits: less air pollution, fewer tailpipe emissions, and increased fuel efficiency, all of which are goals shared by the current administration and most of the leadership in Congress.
Average consumers currently pay $600 per month to lease the hydrogen-powered Honda Clarity, even though the infrastructure to support hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) is not as friendly as it could be. GM’s Equinox is also currently in the hands of consumers.
Initially, hydrogen power plants were seen as being prohibitively expensive. Recent technological advances, however, have brought the price down to less than $100 per kW, and the Department of Energy estimates the cost will approach $70 per kW.
Once the price reaches $40-50 per kW, which is entirely possible in full production mode, a hydrogen fuel cell engine will cost the same as a standard internal combustion engine. Note that a fuel cell has an efficiency of about 60 percent, whereas the typical automobile engine runs at just under 20 percent.
A recent study by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences concluded hydrogen vehicles could be commercially available by 2015, and that HFCVs would be getting the equivalent of 80 miles per gallon. Within fifteen years HFCVs could be fully cost competitive with gasoline-burning vehicles.
But we cannot reach that point without a national commitment that emphasizes America’s ingenuity. We must not begin by penalizing Americans for energy use through taxes and other command-and-control elements. In fact, the NAS study on hydrogen insists energy taxes “will do little on their own to encourage commercialization of transformative technologies, s
uch as hydrogen, for the foreseeable future.”
Shifting to a hydrogen economy will ultimately reduce pollution, increase available energy supplies, and help to stabilize energy costs. But trying to achieve those goals with hydrogen by regulating other industries into extinction will only weaken the economy and worsen the problem.
Solutions for More American Hydrogen Fuel Cells
• Incentivize commercially viable Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles. Congress should approve a billion dollar tax-free prize to the first company that can offer hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) to consumers for $40,000 or less.
• Provide tax breaks for investment in infrastructure. Creating a tax break for the construction of hydrogen refueling stations would accelerate the adoption of HFCVs. Providing a uniform set of codes and standards for transporting and shipping hydrogen would also provide increased certainty to investors.
• Increase public investment in fuel cell technology. The National Academy of Sciences outlined the need for a $16 billion investment in HFCVs, of which $5 billion would come from the government, between now and 2023. While this sounds expensive, it is dwarfed by the several hundred billion dollars we spend each year just to purchase oil from OPEC.
WE HAVE THE POWER, BUT DO WE HAVE THE WILL?
For years, bureaucrats and Washington elites have moved us further away from energy independence by mandating what kind of energy Americans use, how much we can use, and where we can use it. Many on the far Left regard energy usage as a moral failure or an environmental sin.
Unfortunately, many of these same people have been in charge of our energy policy for several decades, and we can see the result: an increasing reliance on foreign dictators for our energy, volatile energy prices, and persistent, avoidable energy crises. Ironically, these anti-energy zealots blame the energy producers for the energy crisis. Likewise, the big-government, anti-energy politicians blame Big Oil or Big Coal for high energy prices, ignoring the galaxy of taxes and regulations that have been foisted on these firms.
The extremists also blame the American people simply for using energy. But Americans are the victims, not the culprits. It’s shameful that decades of anti-energy policies are ignored as career politicians blame the very taxpayers who put them into office.
But Americans know better, and they deserve better.
Polling consistently shows Americans favor expanding all forms of energy. Every new tax and every new regulation drives up the price of American energy and puts more money in the pockets of Hugo Chavez and Saudi sheikhs. As our energy policy becomes more restrictive, OPEC leaders laugh as they head straight to the bank with our money.
As we have shown, America could become energy independent. We have more energy resources than any other nation, and together with our top scientists and engineers, we have enormous possibilities in new technologies, many of which we cannot even predict today.
Imagine going back in time a hundred years and talking to Henry Ford about a hybrid electric engine. Odds are he never even thought about how to create such a thing.
Or explain to the Wright Brothers the U.S. military’s stealth bombers. Or talk to Edison about three dimensional full color IMAX movies.
None of these inventions could have been built even if they could have been imagined that long ago. More important, none of them were developed based on taxing and regulating other industries into extinction. They were the product of American ingenuity, not government mandates.
So while America has enormous potential with hundreds of new technologies and every source of energy, we can only fully unleash the power of American innovation if we allow our brightest minds to succeed. And since no one can predict the next major energy technology, why would we try to pick winners and losers with taxes and regulations on energy producers, which in turn could prevent the next Ford, Edison, or Wright brothers from finding the next breakthrough technology?
Current proposals to tax certain forms of energy, such as a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, assume energy independence requires us to fundamentally change our economy. They suggest achieving energy independence means reducing our energy dependence.
As this chapter has shown, energy independence does not require a radical economic transformation, nor does it mean we have to believe energy usage is morally wrong.
But energy independence does require that we completely transform our national priorities, especially our energy policy. The truth is simple: if we tax American energy, we will get less American energy, which leads to more foreign energy. And if we encourage the development of American energy, we will get more American energy.
Until our elected leaders recognize the massive energy potential this country has, and as long as their solutions consist of taxing and regulating energy producers, we will only move further away from the very energy independence that all Americans want, all Americans deserve, and all Americans could have.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
There Is No Liberty without Religious Liberty
With Rick Tyler, Founding Director of Renewing American Leadership www.RenewingAmericanLeadership.com
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1774,
A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF BRITISH AMERICA
The revolutionary idea contained in the Declaration of Independence is that certain fundamental human rights can neither be accorded nor taken away by government. They are gifts from God, which makes those rights “unalienable.” Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are listed in that order, for without life there can be no liberty, and without liberty there can be no pursuit of happiness. This central idea was the foundation upon which a free people determined to govern themselves.
The forerunner of the Declaration was signed over a century and a half earlier in 1620. The forty-one families who signed the Mayflower Compact knew their very survival would depend on their ability to rely upon each other and upon God. Plymouth, Massachusetts, being their “accidental” landing place, they were in unchartered territory. Beginning with the words, “In the name of God. Amen,” the extraordinary Compact created the terms of self-government that bound one to another and each to God. Unlike the Magna Carta, the Compact was not a contract between a king and a servant or a superior and a subordinate. It reflected the radical notion that by binding themselves together as equals before God, they could govern themselves without a king. It was a covenant.
Covenantal language was found in dozens of organizing documents in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial America. The fifty-six signers of the Declaration similarly pledged themselves to each other and each to God. They placed their pens to the parchment with full knowledge that a massive British armada was assembling on behalf of the most powerful empire in the world in order to crush the rebellion.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Later, in Philadelphia during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, some of the delegates worried that, as drafted, the Constitution would not adequately protect the rights of individuals. To address these concerns, James Madison drafted amendments that Congress sent to the states for ratification, eventually forming our Bill of Rights. These te
n amendments offered the protections necessary to secure individual liberty. Together they guard the individual from infringements the Founders recognized would inevitably result from instituting a strong central government. These amendments reflect the Founders’ understanding of the inherent dignity and value of each individual. Every person has certain rights because those rights ultimately come from God.
The First Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
With this right, the Founders prohibited the establishment of any church at the national level while protecting the individual’s free exercise of religion. The First Amendment was not written because the Founders were anti-religious, but precisely because they favored religion.
Today, the foundations for religious freedom are being eroded. The secular-socialist Left have twisted the meaning of the First Amendment to fit a post-modern world they helped create.
People of faith have been systematically marginalized by a two-part secular campaign waged by the cultural elite. First, there has been a sustained effort to change the culture by spreading propaganda through the schools and through the media, where the values of the secular-socialist Left are advanced while historic American values of God-given rights are silenced and mocked. The second part of the campaign is to give secular values the authority of law through the courts, state houses, and the Congress, while removing the individual’s right to, as Jefferson put it, “profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.”
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