This week, the Los Angeles Times has invited me to participate in a daily on-line debate (a regular feature they sponsor called “Dust-Up”) with V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies. Monday, we debated off-shore drilling. Today, we debated the T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan. Tomorrow, we’ll debate nuclear energy. Thursday, the issue is the future of the automobile. Friday, the topic is what America’s energy economy will and/or should look like in a generation. While our exchanges won’t be in the newspaper’s print edition, I’ll take the on-line exposure.
So far, I don’t think John has laid a glove on me. In the off-shore drilling discussion, John has a hard time differentiating between electricity markets and transportation markets. To say that we should rely on wind, solar, or whatever — and not oil — is to say that we should rely on batteries to run our automotive fleet. Well, that would be great, but until some pretty big-time breakthroughs occur in battery technology, that’s not going to happen. Regarding T. Boone Pickens’ energy agenda, I’m still waiting for a concrete argument about why markets “fail” to produce all the investment dollars that this supposedly worthy industry needs.
Tomorrow’s debate will likely produce few sparks. I’m against nuclear energy subsidies and don’t think the industry would survive without them. Thursday and Friday, however, will be more interesting. I don’t have the faintest idea what sort of personal automobiles will be on the market in, say, 2030, and even less idea what the energy economy of the next generation will look like. I suspect, however, that John thinks it’s all rather obvious where energy markets and technologies are heading and that he has the perfect master plan to most efficiently accelerate all the big-time changes that history has in store for us.
Saying “I don’t know” to questions like these is never that good of an idea if you want to dazzle people with your wisdom and insight. On the other hand, it’s hard to marshall the argument that “the oil age is over and the age of genetically modified gerbils on treadmills is coming” (or whatever) and then say that the government needs to do something to get us there. Well, if its so inevitable, then why must government act at all? We’ll find out if John can manage to resolve that tension in what will likely be his argument.
