There is a reason I chose “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” as the subtitle of a study of energy policy I just completed under the auspices of the Hudson Institute.
That reason: Decades of listening to political leaders of both parties promising “energy independence” and an end to America’s “oil addiction.”
I have bad news for all those who think that the retirement of George W. Bush will somehow initiate a golden — or green — age in America. It won’t. Just take a close look at the promises being made by the two men who were just formally nominated as their parties’ standard-bearers in the fight to control the White House.
Barack Obama promises that he will lead us to independence from imported oil in 10 years by spending $150 billion of taxpayer money.
There is an old saying among economic forecasters: Give ’em a date, or give ’em a number, but never give ’em a number and a date.
Obama violated that rule — $150 billion over 10 years — which would be laudable in a candidate famous for his lack of specificity were it not that the forecast is utter nonsense, given the other planks in his energy policy platform.
Obama supports continued subsidization of corn-based ethanol production, despite the inflation in food prices that the switch to growing fuel instead of food is causing.
But his enthusiasm for this substitute for petroleum-based fuel does not extend to ethanol-from-sugar-cane made in Brazil.
Consistent with his increasingly protectionist stance, Obama supports the prohibitively high tariff that keeps the much cheaper Brazilian product out of the United States.
The Democratic candidate also opposes opening up the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which makes his support for nuclear power — conditional on the availability of safe waste-disposal facilities — derisory.
The same goes for his apparent belated support for offshore drilling. It’s OK so long as it is “environmentally sensitive,” a standard he knows potential drillers will never meet to the satisfaction of litigious green groups.
Which leaves wind and solar. Neither is the favorite of many environmental groups. Wind machines spoil their views and require construction of transmission lines that environmentalists find unsightly and dangerous.
And solar installations take up huge swathes of land — almost 20 square miles in the case of one being built to service a tiny portion of the electricity consumed in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco area.
Besides, $15 billion per year cannot buy independence from foreign oil, which even Obama concedes will require a transformation of the entire economy, not least the transportation sector on which almost every other part of the economy depends.
That might be why he has recently quietly changed his promise: It now seems he would make us independent only of Middle East oil, which feeds 16 percent of what has come to be called our “oil addiction.”
But Obama is not alone in his inconsistencies. John McCain wants to see 45 new nuclear plants operating by 2030. But not a word about where he expects the capital to come from to fund such a massive program.
Nuclear plants are dauntingly expensive — estimates of their cost seems to double every six months — and new nuclear plants cannot compete with existing coal- and gas-fired generation.
So they would have to be subsidized, either directly or by guaranteeing that consumers will be forced to bear the costs.
Besides, for electricity from nuclear plants to make even a dent in our imports of oil someone would have to develop not only the so-far elusive efficient car and truck batteries for which McCain would offer a taxpayer-funded prize of $300 million, but the infrastructure to service them.
But the Arizona senator has given no indication of the government subsidies he has in mind to fund the replacement of gas stations with battery-charging substitutes.
Then there is cap-and-trade, the program many feel will make it too expensive for companies to continue to burn fossil fuels at current levels.
Both candidates favor cap-and-trade. Neither concedes that consumers will end up paying the bill, or that the system has been a fiasco when tried in Europe.
There’s more, but space limitations forbid a fuller telling — now available from the Hudson Institute, no charge. But read further only if you are prepared to abandon hope that our political leaders will ever fashion a rational energy policy.
Examiner columnist Irwin Stelzer is a senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Economic Studies.
