Over the weekend, in case you somehow missed it, the national average for gas prices spiked to over four dollars per gallon. Today, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air asks the question, “So when will Congress act?” (There is also a national, AOL online poll you can participate in at the link.) Contrary to my normal, “keep the government out of my darned business” attitude, this is one case where Ed may be on to something and our congressional critters may be able to do some good. But the choices of direction in how a remedy might be effected are both dizzying and frightening in scope.
Last week, Barbara Boxer tried to push through the Lieberman-Warner bill, claiming that it would address gas prices. It certainly would — by driving them much higher through over-regulation of the energy industry. The energy industry does not need further regulation. They need Congress to get the federal government out of its way so that it can add more supply to the market, which is the only way prices will fall.
Make no mistake… I am not one of the street hawkers who loudly proclaim that every single challenge facing the country can be solved by free market solutions. There is a time and place for everything. But while Barack Obama and John McCain argue about summer gas tax holidays and Congress dithers over how much profit is “too much” for the oil industry, the sad reality is that the world is still using massive amounts of energy and it has to come from someplace. If you want lower prices, you simply must increase the supply – yes, it’s really that simple in this case.
So where do we get more energy? Like Ed, I agree that we need to continue our efforts to research and improve the efficiency of alternative energy sources. Micro-hydro, wind, solar and geo-thermal should all be on the table. But we’re not at a point yet where they will fill the entire gap. I’m not as much of a fan of the Drill Here Drill Now movement as Mr. Morrissey, but until we can become more indpendent and secure in our energy needs, we may have to give some ground and expand that a bit.
More to the point in our considerations should be the old hobgoblin of nuclear energy. We have effectively shut down all efforts to expand our nuclear power generation capability in this country out of fears spread from the past. Yes, current fission technology has serious issues, primarily concerning spent fuel storage, but for a short term solution we can work around those. Fears of other sorts, though, are simply unfounded. Three Mile Island actually remains a prime example of how well our system works. In what could have turned into a major disaster, the amount of radiation released there was less than the background dose you’ll get during a two week vacation in Denver. Heck, we’ve lost two nuke reactors on submarines to the bottom of the ocean and even they don’t seem to be leaking. Chernobyl was not an example of why you shouldn’t build reactors… it’s an examply of why you don’t build stupidly designed reactors which are steam explosions waiting to happen.
For the record, there was no nuclear explosion in Russia. It was a steam explosion. Just ask the engineers from the Manhatten project exactly how hard it is to create a supercritical nuclear reaction capable of reaching detonation. Reactors lack the purity of fuel, the critical mass and the unimaginable pressures required to create a bomb.
Coal is another unpleasant option, but improved technology in emissions control may still make that a viable and neccesary stop-gap to consider while we improve the technology for green energy. No matter the source, though, demand is exceeding supply by wider and wider margins, and if you don’t want other nations holding an even bigger hammer over our heads, we’re going to have to step up our production game big time over the next decade. And if I may remind you yet again… the oil is still going to run out some day. Be ready.