Don't Conflate Energy Independence With Climate Change Policy

Now that the House Democrats have finished their largely symbolic first 100 hours agenda, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says one of the next key issues is "energy independence." According to Pelosi, "climate change is part of energy independence."

Wrong.

The converse might well be true, however: energy independence could well be a by-product of aggressive policies to reduce carbon emissions as a means of addressing global warming.

Here's the problem. "Energy independence" is a set of policies designed to wean America from its ever-growing dependence on foreign oil, and, to a lesser extent, imported natural gas. The goal of achieving energy independence is to enhance our national security, primarily by avoiding entanglements with the unstable and sometimes unsavory governments that control much of our foreign oil.

If we really want energy independence, we can pretty easily get it, albeit at a cost. The U.S. has ample coal reserves that can be tapped for generating electricity and transforming into liquid fuel. Likewise, U.S. corn production can increasingly be diverted into distillation of ethanol to run automobiles. We can also choose to open up drilling in environmentally sensitive areas of the Arctic and boost incentives to develop shale oil in the Rockies. We can also boost nuclear power. And, of course, we can expand our use of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal.

All these steps could reduce our use of foreign oil, which we use primarily because it is CHEAP compared to these other options.

Now, let's turn to global warming. If we want to reduce carbon emissions, we won't tap our vast coal reserves. Indeed, the first step we'd want to take is to replace coal-fired electric plants with almost anything else, since coal is the biggest carbon emitter of the major fuels. Similarly, we wouldn't want to open up vast new oil fields in Alaska or off our coasts since oil, too, is a major carbon emitter.

Ethanol production from corn is a closer question, but most scientists who've looked into it have concluded that corn-based ethanol is, at best, only slightly better from a carbon perspective than gasoline derived from oil. It might even be a bit worse.

Instead, we would concentrate our efforts on renewable fuels that are low in carbon emissions. Wind and solar energy are great--the only carbon emissions are those caused by the manufacture and construction of their components, which is relatively small. Wind, especially, is a great source of electricity and is already competitive with carbon fuels such as oil. Solar is more expensive, but spurring its widespread use with subsidies will help the industry produce next generation solar panels that are more efficient.

Neither wind nor solar, however, can be counted on for round the clock electricity generation, and large scale storage is not likely to be very economical or environmentally friendly. Accordingly, we need to also invest in new nuclear plants, which are as carbon friendly as wind. Those "environmentalists" who oppose all nuclear of any kind are unreasonable, and, in the end, making a huge negative environmental trade-off based more on fear than fact.

On the automotive front, we need to encourage development of cellulose based biofuels from plants such as switchgrass and cornstalks, and move away from corn-based ethanol. Cellulose biofuels should be 5-10 times more carbon friendly than corn. But that's just for the short run. In the long run, we need to move rapidly toward replacement of our existing automotive fleet with cars that are primarily electric--hybrids with an additional battery, which can achieve 70 mpg (of gasoline or biofuel).

Ultimately, we need to move to a hydrogen fuel cell fleet, a feat that is more difficult than most people think. One problem: today, most hydrogen in the U.S. is produced from natural gas, and thus emits carbon. Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis of water, but that requires a lot of electricity. One solution--next generation nuclear electric plants, which operate at such high temperatures they can produce both electricity and hydrogen.

Eliminating oil and natural gas for home heating is also quite a challenge.

Of course, since virtually all our imported energy is in the form of oil and natural gas, switching to lower carbon sources of energy will have, as a side effect, promotion of energy independence.

Accordingly, Democrats should concentrate their policy changes on those that promote reduced carbon emissions. "Energy independence" as a goal unto itself will not do much to address global warming--indeed, it could make matters worse if we rely increasingly on our abundant coal.

Unfortunately, for political reasons--wanting to look strong on national defense, catering to farm belt corn interests, etc.--Democrats will probably continue to wrap themselves in the rhetoric of energy independence. Let's just hope they funnel the money to the more promising carbon neutral technologies.