Following California into the Abyss
For several days we have been reading and rereading a Competitive Enterprise Institute essay on California's Energy Policy.
We wish that Mark Udall and Bill Ritter would take a hard look at the essay because it appears that they are trying to follow the California model without admitting as much:
Among other policies, global warming activists call for an effective moratorium on new electrical plants lacking carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), and increased energy efficiency and use of renewable sources. Since it may take two decades to find out whether CCS is economical and decades more to build the infrastructure, and renewables just cannot provide enough, this constitutes a ban on new plants. How then do we meet U.S. electricity needs as the economy and population grows?
Many policy makers and environmental activists assert that the rest of the country can simply replicate California’s demand-side management (DSM) programs, which consist of an assortment of subsidy programs to retrofit buildings and subsidize energy-using equipment. California supposedly shows that we can have it all—a growing population and economy and lower overall energy consumption and emissions. Adopt the “California model” nationwide, they claim, and America will become so much more energy efficient that we will not need new electrical capacity for decades. This will give us time to develop a non-carbon energy system. Many states are set to follow the California model, and several key lawmakers [ including Mark Udall, John Salazar, and Ken Salazar ] are pushing Congress to enact similar interventions at the federal level.
CEI then proceeds to explain why the California model won't work elsewhere:
1. California is an energy importer; 2. It has a mild climate which cuts both summer and winter energy consumption; 3. California has moved away from energy dependent industry; 4. Real estate prices are forcing many Californians into smaller homes.
Here in Colorado, Bill Ritter is in the process of creating a regulatory environment that is hostile to coal fired electrical generation. He has stacked the Public Utilities Commission with anti coal folks, and he has more recently directed the state health department to outlaw coal plants on health grounds:
The order also says that the state needs to evaluate whether the state should allow any new conventional coal-fired power plants to be built and asks the department to make recommendations on alternatives within the next year.
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