Free and Green--an alternative to the Bu$h energy plan

[SHRED]

Free and Green
A free-market-embracing, green-power-supporting alternative to the Bush energy plan.
Harvey Wasserman
January/February 2004 Issue

Two hundred and fifty-seven feet high -- and highly profitable – a pair of Danish-made turbines twirl in the northern Ohio winds. Owned by the City of Bowling Green in concert with some other municipal utilities, the $1.8 million machines each produce enough electricity to power nearly a thousand homes. But these ultra-modern generators represent more than just a wise investment – they are both symbol and reality in a war over national energy policy that will be fought again in Washington this year. It’s a war we can’t afford to lose.

Two months ago, Senate Democrats – supported by seven Republicans -- barely beat back a Bush Administration-backed national energy plan. The proposal was a fossil/nuke grab-bag, bloated by $20-30 billion in subsidies, tax breaks and other giveaways for some of the nation’s biggest polluters.

The administration invested significant political capital in pushing for the bill’s passage, and the defeat was a nasty shock for the White House. But those who think the fight has been won may be in for an even nastier shock in the coming months. As Congress slouches back into session, the fragile coalition that defeated the bill is already cracking. Now, advocates of clean energy face a formidable task: Develop a viable alternative to Team Bush's coal-oil-nuke-gas (CONG) plan, and do it soon.

Of course, just being greener won’t be enough. Our clean alternative will need to make fiscal sense, and will need to meet the nation’s huge energy needs. The good news: Thanks to a host of technological advances, such a plan might be surprisingly simple to develop.

The Bush energy plan that failed in December was an unvarnished partisan play. Drafted in secret by Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous task force, it was fine-tuned in secret by Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Billy Tauzin -- two of King CONG's most ardent Capitol Hill guerillas. The resulting pork-laden legislation and the steamroller approach offended scores of lawmakers, and prompted scathing editorials nationwide. But in the Senate, the final straw was a rider providing a legal shield for makers of MTBE, a gasoline additive that's a suspected carcinogen (both Tauzin and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have big MTBE producers in their districts). Some have opined, reassuringly, that the Bush/Cheney/Tauzin/Domenici CONG nightmare is dead – that it could never pass in an election year. Unlikely. Bush now says he’s shooting for a mid-February passage.

With no time to spare, advocates of green energy might want to steal a page from the Republicans’ "free market" playbook. GOP politicians and their bloviating brethren at right-wing think tanks love to declare their support for level playing fields and "unfettered competition," especially when attacking government regulations. But they conveniently overlook the huge federal subsidies that prop up King CONG. And they miss the crucial fact that, with one important caveat, renewable energy – particularly wind energy -- is at the brink of blowing away its CONG competition in pure market terms.
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The rest of the article:
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/01/01_203.html

[cprise]

1. The 'free market' will not choose renewables

They see fossil reserves as money in the bank and will not have their commodity made worthless by green (possibly cheaper) alternatives; they will forestall renewables and until such a time that:

a) they've made a killing from the final oil shortage

and/or

b) green alternatives become best implemented in a highly-centralized big business fashion (currently, renewables tend to favor distributed generation and operation) in order to keep wealth and power concentrated in the hands of the few.