Congress is poised once again to begin renewed debate on what has become very divisive National Energy Policy. America is currently at war and the Middle East has imploded in violence with no end in sight. With such an unstable backdrop, many would argue that an expansion of our domestic oil and gas drilling would logically make America more secure. In reality, such actions will play right into the hands of a few multi-national oil companies and Middle-Eastern countries that profit from our countries continuing addiction to oil.
Once again our nation is looking seriously at energy development. Since the oil shock of 1973 almost every Administration has proposed and many carried out top-down energy policies that devour billions of dollars and depend on centralized, costly facilities (pipelines, power plants, oil and gas subsidies) usually following a spike in prices. Such policies have generally failed. Scare tactics, such as last years corporately created "California Energy Crisis", help drive misguided energy policies, ultimately keeping our country held hostage to special interests.
There remains a better, smarter and simpler approach. It appears to be more of a bottom-up in nature. It makes the focus of our national energy policy conservation and alternative energy. By creating a policy designed with real National Security and common sense in mind, we have the opportunity to completely wean ourselves from all Middle-Eastern oil, thus creating a more secure and stable energy market.
Since 1973, according to statistics from the Rocky Mountain Institute, the United States has cut annual energy bills by $200 billion a year, yet because of continued inefficiency we waste another $300 billion. Everyday new and smarter technologies are allowing more service for less energy. So we are left with a choice- we can destroy millions of acres of our wildest public lands in a mad search for the last drop of oil, or we can demand products with better insulation, build buildings with more efficient windows, and drive automobiles that are safer and more fuel-efficient. This is not fantasy or years off, it exists today with little of the subsidies handed out so readily to the coal, nuclear, oil and gas industries.
Here in New Mexico, the choice we make will have real long-term benefits or consequences. In the south-central portion of our state lies the 1.2 million acre wild grassland called Otero Mesa. Otero Mesa is symbolic of the choices we currently face. Natural gas has been discovered in the heart of this grassland, to remove it will require transforming this area rich in wildlife and wilderness, into an industrial complex of roads, pipelines, power lines and toxic waste ponds.
By contrast, we could choose to invest in alternatives. With Sandia lab, the alternative energy program at NMSU, 300 plus days of sun and great wind resources in the eastern part of the state we could be looking at developing a real long-term vision for New Mexico. In Carlsbad, the WIPP site could be used for the development of a solar power plant.
In the 1970's New Mexico ranked first in alternative energy development, today we are in the bottom 5%. The jobs that could be created with alternatives and conservation would not be based on a boom and bust cycle; rather they would be sustainable and multi-layered from research to development, manufacturing to installation and maintenance. 30 years from now they will not leave a scared landscape and ghost towns, but will instead provide cleaner air, more prosperity and allow our children to go to places like Otero Mesa and enjoy as we have, the wonder of our New Mexico landscape.
American cars today average 24 miles per gallon, the lowest level in 20 years. By adding just 2.7 miles per gallon to this country's light fleet vehicles we could eliminate the need for any Middle Eastern oil, without effecting safety. Old gas fired power plants are being replaced by micro turbines and fuel cells that are a thousand or even ten thousand times smaller but equally or more efficient, that also remove the centralized nature of power transmission. Tract housing is going up in parts of California that offer as standard equipment roofs that make solar electricity. Today in Germany over 6000 megawatts of power comes from wind power-that equals 20 coal fired power plants. By the year 2020 2/3's of Europe's power will come from wind. Solar power is booming even without grandiose subsidies, lately growing from 26 to 42 percent per year.
The news is all good, but special interests, tied to 19 century technology are not eager to relinquish their strangle hold on our domestic energy policy. Before then, they would have us destroy our nations wildest landscapes and pollute further our skies and waters. There is a better way, the technology is here today, we simply need the will.
Published in the Albuquerque Journal 4-17-2002.