McCain, Obama, Biden and Palin - all have promised to make coal, the nasty little black nuggets that powered the industrial revolution and the first world war, a key component of their 21st century energy policy.
The coal industry has made an impressive effort to re-brand its product, whose use is the most destructive of anything in history, as “clean coal.” Presidential candidates have locked on to this language in a confused if not cynical effort to simultaneously appeal to both coal-country swing state voters and up and coming energy conscious twenty somethings. It isn’t working.
Fortunately, there is evidence that Obama isn’t so confused about coal after all. Unfortunately, he hasn’t quite nailed the language of the new energy economy. Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle recently, Obama said ”if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
That a carbon cap will increase energy prices is no secret. That it may bankrupt coal companies is debatable, as is the desirousness of doing so. A more fundamental truth is being omitted here. If we keep building and operating coal-fired power plants, it will bankrupt the magnificently complex ecosystem we all depend on for our survival.
The price of inaction on carbon is magnitudes greater than any increase in energy costs resulting in a carbon cap. Further, the net affect on an average American household under a carbon cap done right would be positive, with energy costs offset by dividend payments. This cap, auction and invest system could bring down carbon emissions with an admittedly heavy-handed, government-enforced cap, spur investment with a market-friendly trading system, apportion billions of dollars towards investment in solutions, and still cut checks to lower-income households to offset increasing energy costs in the short run.
In the long-run, a carbon cap will make clean energy abundant and cheap, as venture capital shifts towards clean tech and American innovation is unleashed and unburdened by our decades-long subsidy of fossil fuels. Don’t let paranoid remarks from the coal industry and its toadies fool you. De-coaling our economy is the only way to create long-term viability and prosperity.
Coal brought us a long way, but its time has come and gone. The 21st century must be a century of new ideas, new leaders, and new American Energy.
By the way, there is an election tomorrow. Don’t forget to vote.
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I for one find bankrupting coal companies “desirable”. What is up with the youth climate movement identifying with the very corporations that are making earth uninhabitable? Much of this talk of the “green economy” has the underlying assumption that we should be as concerned about corporations making a profit as we are about the climate. WTF? We shouldn’t be helping these companies “make America great” with alleged green technologies. We should be working towards community based solutions on a local level, aka, a world without corporations. Until then we will be up against these faceless corporations that are always more concerned with profit then with creating a truly just and sustainable world for humans and the rest of the natural world.