From the by M.D. Fletcher |
October 2011 |
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Last month, I presented in this space what I considered to be a helpful explanation of some of the economic drawbacks of large-scale wind, solar and biofuel energy production methodologies. I also suggested that political considerations were often the primary motive force behind the development of these installations. Well, gosh darn it, wouldn't you know that a certain number of my loyal and devoted readership would take exception to those remarks and set about pointing out to me my various grievous shortcomings as a thinker, writer, manager, political pundit and human being. (One younger reader, perhaps following the lead of his or her similarly-minded elders, also suggested I was a boogerhead.) Now, I've been writing this column for well over 20 years and I deeply appreciate critical review of my work, even by folks holding political views diametrically opposed to my own. It is still, after all, more or less a free country and I believe everyone has a right to an opinion, no matter how goofy that opinion may appear to be to most of us who face life pretty much regularly without the apparent application of chemical enhancement. I therefore wish to extend acknowledgements to all who participated is this latest scrum, along with my somewhat grudging respect for their tenacious adherence to the rigors of their dogma. Similar regards go out to the horses they rode in on. My essential difficulty in finding comfort in the direction the alternative energy production debate is going lies in the subsidies created when the government chooses to use everybody's money to benefit a prosperous few. For example, small-scale photovoltaic applications are heavily subsidized at the Federal, state and utility levels through rebates for qualified individuals. The problem, in my view, is that the primary qualifying criteria to receive these generous rebates is the individual's financial ability to cough up about thirty grand to get the ball rolling. New Mexico, by any stretch of the imagination, is not a particularly affluent neck of the woods. Indeed, were it not for our friends in the beautiful and gracious state of Mississippi, poor old New Mexico would more often than not come in dead last in |
virtually every socio-economic measure imaginable. Such is our lot in life (which, by the way, I believe we roundly deserve given our historic propensity for selecting gypsies, tramps and thieves for elective office). So what happen is the vast majority of our beleaguered citizens involuntarily contribute their taxes to the government which in turn distributes it to the very few among us who have the financial wherewithal to climb on the solar bandwagon. This strikes me as a kind of reverse Robin Hood scheme that perpetrates a continuing transfer of wealth from the doggedly poor to the fortunate rich. And there seems to be a whole lot of that going around these days. The most popular justification for these rebate programs is the notion of halting contributors to global warming through elimination of greenhouse gasses, particularly carbon dioxide emissions. Coal-fired electric generating stations emit greenhouse gasses; so do plants, animals, volcanoes, oceans, taco buffets, swamp coolers, hoot-nannies, whales, burrito buffets, the U.S. Congress, lightning, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, enchilada buffets and your crazy Aunt Tillie, bless her gaseous little heart. But since the government is unwilling to take on your crazy Aunt Tillie, the target becomes coal-fired generating facilities and the idea is to arbitrarily and unilaterally set limits on carbon dioxide emissions and thereby force generating utilities to commit enormous resources in unproven and expensive carbon capture and containment technologies. This has the net effect of dramatically escalating the cost of traditional electric generation and rendering alternative technologies price-point competitive. All this was accomplished by former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's august Environmental Improvement Board back in 2010. If these rules, promulgated without the benefit of a proper economic analysis, are allowed to stand, New Mexico will be handicapped competitively with our neighboring states and the plentiful and growing ranks of our neglected and under-served poor will only become more wretched. Visit KeepElectricityAffordable.com to find out how you may help stop the madness. Do it for our future. |
