The Green Mantra: Never Let the Facts Get in the Way of the Agenda

I'm taking the lazy-man's road today and reprinting portions of an energy commentary that appeared on Townhall.com this morning. It was written by Bob Beauprez, a former Member of Congress and currently the editor-in-chief of A Line of Sight, an online policy resource. In the original, there are actually four topics discussed; I have included only two of them here. If you are ambitious and want to read the entire screed, go to 

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2011/07/07/green,_youre_a_hog/page/full/

It seems that whenever the smart guys in government implement policies to save us from ourselves and make the world a better place, we get stuck with the bill as well as a whole new set of problems that they created.

Just in the last few days, we came across the following reports that show yet again that all the homage paid to the green gods has not resulted in the benefits promised, and often creates a whole new set of problems.
 
Economic Benefits Outweigh Environmental Impacts of Shale Drilling
The radical environmentalist's favorite new target is the technology called hydraulic fracturing (fracing) that has been around since the 1940s and used on millions of oil and gas wells to unlock trapped energy reserves.  Radical leftists claim fracing could pose grave environmental risks, particularly to water.  However, several exhaustive studies by the EPA determined that the fracing poses "little or no threat to (underground drinking water)."  Further, the EPA could find "no confirmed cases" of water well contamination or underground movement of the fracing fluid.  None of that has stopped the lefties who aren't about to let the facts get in their way.  Their objective is to shut down the whole fossil fuel industry.

As with virtually any human activity, there is some degree of environmental surface impact and the occasional accident does happen when wells are drilled.   Three researchers at the Manhattan Institute in New York decided to analyze the real amount of risk compared to the backend reward for increased domestic production.

The scientists studied the Marcellus shale region in Pennsylvania where fracing has been used extensively for over 60 years.  They found that the "typical Marcellus shale well generates about $4 million in economic benefits while generating only $14,000 in economic damages from environmental impacts."  That is a ratio of 1:285.  Almost anybody would jump at the opportunity for that kind of return on investment.  But, then, the anti-oil and gas crowd is also the anti-free market capitalism crowd.  They pretty much just dislike everything that makes sense for America. 

Renewable Energy Sources Require Vast Amounts of Natural Resources
What's wrong with this picture?  Green energy was supposed to purify us of our decadent ways and make us more responsible stewards of our natural resources. 

For sure, the two most obvious renewable energy resources available are wind and sunlight, and they are free and continuously replenished.  But, the conversion of them into large amounts of energy requires vast amounts of natural resources, most notably land.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute analyzed ramifications of California's highly ambitious mandate that will require one-third of all the state's electricity come from renewable sources by 2020.   Bryce put a pencil to the challenge. 

One third of California's electricity is about 17,000 megawatts.  Bryce supposed that California's mandate might be split evenly between solar and wind.  That's a bunch.  Already under construction in the Mojave Desert is the $2 billion Ivanpah solar plant.  It will cover 3,600 acres of land; about 5 ½ square miles.  When complete it will provide just 370 megawatts.  To meet just half of the mandated requirement of the new legislation – 8500 megawatts – 23 Ivanpahs would have to be built covering 129 square miles, about five times the size of Manhattan.  

The enormous land requirements for a renewable energy facility create additional environmental concerns.  For example, in April, the Bureau of Land Management ordered a halt to construction at Ivanpah out of concern for the desert tortoise, which is protected by the Endangered Species Act. 

If the other half of energy required by California's renewable mandate comes from wind generation, the land requirements are even greater.   The Roscoe wind farm in Texas covers 154 square miles and has a capacity of 781.5 megawatts.   At that rate, California would need 1,675 square miles covered with wind turbines.  That's considerably bigger than the entire state of Rhode Island. 

In addition to California, 28 other states (including my Colorado) have adopted mandated requirements for renewable energy sources.  "In the rush to do something – anything - to deal with the intractable problem of greenhouse gas emissions, environmental groups and policy makers have determined that renewable energy is the answer," Bryce says.  But, he adds, in doing so they have "thrown in the ditch" was the deeply held essence of environmental protection advanced by the economist E. F. Schumacher; "Small is beautiful."
To be true to the stated objective of reducing greenhouse gases and true environmental stewardship, Bryce says policy makers and activists "must exploit low-carbon energy sources" – natural gas and nuclear power.  "They have small footprints," he concludes.