Allan Greenspan, sometime GOP shill and full-time market fundamentalist on America's energy prospects:
"The experience of the past fifty years--and indeed much longer than that--affirms that market forces play the key role in conserving scarce energy resources, directing those resources to their most highly valued uses,"
Really. Is that what the experience of the last fifty years (and much longer) shows? I rather think not. The only time America has had any kind of scarcity with regard to energy was the OPEC embargo of the 70s. The immediate reaction was rationing (such a hallmark of a free enterprise), and the increases in efficiency that actually resulted were largely the result of the CAFE laws and other public sector moves, not the fabled invisible hand of the market.
The market can theoretically correct itself in two ways, either industry has to spontaneously decide to produce products for which there is no clear demand, or consumers can prompt change. The former is very unlikely, so we can assume Greenspan is pinning the future of this country on consumers, that is to say for consumers start making smarter choices about what they drive (the hybrid becoming the new Hummer), where they shop (penalizing big box retailers that rely on long-distance transit for customers and long-haul trucking), what they eat (penalizing commercial agricorps which use petroleum-based fertilizers) and where they live (away from places with 100+ mile daily commutes). Let's get real, the "market" isn't going to solve this one for us. The market for energy is elastic enough to be very profitable right up to the end, when it isn't, and we've got another 15 years worth of infrastructure that no longer works.
I can't believe anyone still takes Allen Greenspan seriously. "Fifty years and much longer" my ass. Going back further, America has never had an energy crisis. Our own territory contained vast amounts of oil, which built some of America's first great fortunes, and after WWII we secured friendly relations with Saudi Arabia which helped ease us off the oil peak. The little shock-let of the OPEC embargo is the last and only energy crisis in this nation's history.
Greenspan is so intense a market fundamentalist that he creates imaginary history to support his beliefs that the invisible hand of the market will deftly handle any energy crunch. He goes on to say:
Sustained higher price will "stimulate the research and development that will unlock new approaches to energy production and use that we can now only scarcely envision," Greenspan said.
Ah science, the American religion. I love science, but we're talking about 100 years of infrastructure that's predicated on affordable automotive transport for goods and people. Over at GM, they used to have a two-man team of engineers who would trot out the same electric car at every concept show all through the 80s and 90s. Their job was to design and fit a new body onto the same chassis and power-train by the time next year's show rolled around.
Sustained higher prices are going to stimulate profit-taking in the near future, not serious research. The "hydrogen economy" is decades away if not a total mirage. We need stronger investment in the kind of basic research which corporations will never do -- the fuel cell came out of NASA -- and we need to make a serious public investment in renewing our infrastructure for the 21st Century.
Kind of like the Apollo Alliance idea. Energy policy is a national security issue. It is the national security issue at the moment, actually. It's also an economic issue and an environmental issue. Right now the Republican message on this is ridiculously weak and flat-out wrong. Will anyone step up to champion the alternative view?
