CONSERVATION WASTES ENERGY

The Bush administration today unveils its energy policy, one that will rightfully put energy supply, and better ways of delivering that supply, at the center of our nation's energy efforts. The howls have already begun, with environmental groups, Democrats and a few misguided Republican "moderates" furious that conservation policies haven't been given a leading role.

For the past decade, U.S. energy policy has followed the conservationist agenda like a bible. Bill Clinton came to office promising to put policies that stifled demand for energy ahead of those that actually produced the stuff. Federal and state governments have spent hundreds of millions on tax rebates and programs that "encouraged" people to use less; consumers have shelled out as much complying with regulations that mandated greater efficiency in everything from cars to air conditioners.

Today, we see the results. Energy consumption hasn't gone down; rather, it has stubbornly risen by an average of about 1.7% a year since the early 1980s, despite the increasing weight of conservation policies. And now, after years of neglect, the supply side is a wreck. Environmental regulations have stifled exploration, as well as power-plant and refinery construction; electrical lines and gas pipes are bottlenecked. The entire West, as well as states like New York, faces energy crises and blackouts.

Clearly, demand management is not the answer. That's because it serves mainly to distort supply and demand--like all government policies that meddle in markets. In fact, economists show that government-led demand reduction often produces an effect that is the exact opposite of the one intended: to wit, that enforced conservation actually causes people to use more energy, not less. The idea is simple: Making a product more efficient makes it cheaper to use. This, in turn, causes people to use a product more. Also known as the "rebound effect," it's an idea that has been around a long time...

Conservationists are aware of these economic arguments, and of the fact that they have little or nothing to show after decades of enforced demand reduction. They also know that from a pure supply standpoint, they face a losing battle to convince people to conserve. After all, the world continues to experience an increase, rather than a decrease, in proved energy reserves. Today's proved oil reserves around the world are twice what they were in 1970. In this country alone, we have 300 years' worth of known coal reserves.

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LOUISIANA FOLLIES

"White man speak with forked tongue"

"Louisiana electricity customers could be seeing more green -- both in their wallets and in their power -- as more companies look to develop cheaper renewable energy sources. AEP-SWEPCO recently began soliciting proposals for the generation of up to 250 megawatts of wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass or biomass-based waste energy like landfill gas. The New Iberia company Wind Energy Systems Technologies wants to equip abandoned oil platforms with turbines that will transform wind into power. And earlier this year, General Motors announced it is using landfill gas generated at Shreveport's Woolworth Road Landfill instead of natural gas.

"Any company that can diversify their energy sources has got to be good for Louisiana, it's good for the environment," said Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, who introduced a resolution earlier this year that encourages companies to consider producing wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico. "This is something unique to Louisiana. We ought to do everything possible to make this a reality in our state. The greatest thing is it lessens the dependency on foreign oil and gas."

SWEPCO's parent company AEP has long used renewable energy, but it will be the first time that customers in SWEPCO's system would benefit. Coal- and lignite-fired generating plants provide a majority of power for customers in northwest Louisiana. "If you have cheaper fuel on your system, then those savings are passed on to customers," said SWEPCO spokesman Scott McCloud. The savings generated would depend on the proposals received from the companies that could place new generating facilities into service by the end of next year.

"We're only going to look for the type of energy that will be economically feasible for us and our customers," McCloud said.

[Is he serious? "Alternative" energy is always dearer. If it were cheaper it would already be in use!]

At GM, the use of landfill gas saves the plant approximately $500,000. The gas is captured and processed by Renovar Shreveport LLC, then transported to GM's facility via a seven-mile pipeline. The landfill gas represents one-third of total energy used at the plant.

AEP decided to pursue renewable energy generation for SWEPCO following the recent extension of a 10-year federal tax credit for renewable energy resources".

[Now we're talking! It's only cheaper because of a tax break -- meaning that taxes elsewhere will go up -- so the consumer still loses]

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POWERLINE PANIC: A HARDY PERENNIAL

'Pylons "double child cancer risk",' says BBC News, reporting on research from the Childhood Cancer Research Group at Oxford University. 70,000 children under 15 were studied for the report, half of whom had cancer of various types. For most types of cancer, whether children had lived near power lines had no effect. However, the rate of leukaemia for those relatively few children born or living near power lines was 1.7 times higher than for other children. The report author, Dr Gerald Draper, believes that power lines may be responsible for 20-30 cases per year that would not otherwise have occurred.

Don't panic: Even the report author believes caution is required in interpreting these figures. 'The findings have been surprising, it has made us want to figure out the reasons for these results, and whether power lines might be to blame. But I feel strongly that we have not yet found out conclusively that this is the case,' said Dr Draper.

There are around 500 cases of leukaemia per year in children in the UK, so the risk for any particular household is low. Doubling a tiny risk is still a tiny risk. Even if this new report were accurate, it would suggest an increase in the risk of leukaemia from about 1 in 1400 to around 1 in 700 for the relatively small number of families who actually live near power lines. According to John Brignell, discussing a similar finding in 2001 elsewhere on spiked, that amounts to an extra case of leukaemia every other year.

In any event, the overall risk is so small that it is very possible that this figure is just a statistical artefact and there is no real effect at all. Moreover, no-one has yet managed to put forward a convincing mechanism for how the fields created by power lines might cause cancer.

Other research has shown no link. For example, in 1999, UK Childhood Cancer Survey found no link between the strength of electromagnetic fields in the home and cancer. This would seem to be a superior study in that the strength of such fields was actually measured, rather than simply assuming that fields were higher in homes near pylons. Families may very well not want to live near pylons because they tend to spoil the view, but there is little evidence they will cause cancer.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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