Republicans: What About Kid Energy?
The Republican party seems intent to frame the debate about energy - the security of our supply, its renewable-ness, etc - around gas prices. They claim that we should be pulling out all the stoppers to keep the power grid juiced up, and claim to support an "all of the above" attitude to energy production. In reality, they've been using this refrain as a wedge to demand that offshore oil drilling in the U.S. be opened up. Incidentally all this oil would be sold on the world market, not reserved for our own use, so while it's debatable how much it would help gas prices, it's a sure-thing that it would improve the profits of the oil companies that are already wallowing in money. If it's true that they're interested in all comers as it relates to energy production, let's put it to the test:
Let's hook up electrical generators to treadmills and stationary bikes, put them in the gyms of our public schools, and make children generate the electricity we use! Hell, I can remember my mom saying time and again that she couldn't wait for school to start again after a long summer, largely to get us (and our over abundance of energy) back out of the house. It's a free resource going untapped; everyone agrees that today's kids are overweight, and they're even starting to bring Nintendo Wii consoles to P.E. classes in some schools, who knows why. And in case the kids cry about it, we can distribute whips with the shipments of our modified exercise equipment, to remind them who's in charge. After all, we've got to satisfy our thirst for energy somehow, and they need to do their part.
There's electricity in them thar kids!
No? Too much? I thought so. So, there is a limit to our thirst for [cheap] energy, huh?
The solution to energy prices is about managing the demand curve, not the supply curve. We're something like 300 million souls here in the U.S. and we're competing for oil in a market where one of the other players has over 1.5 billion people, most of whom have an appetite for oil that's becoming more ravenous by the day. If we can't unplug from this race, we're going to lose. Period. The first answer is in conservation, simply using what we have more intelligently. In short-term measures, this is probably part of why the price of oil has been falling recently - we're driving less, and making our oil go farther for us. In the longer term, spending an extra $50 up front to get an Energy Star dish washer can have an immediate impact that will last for years. But this doesn't put money in the pockets of powerful people, so you won't hear Republicans talk about it.
It's time we got a little smarter about this, and stop believing people who have a scarily huge vested interest in the use of ever more oil. The drug pusher cannot run the rehab clinic, and the people paid by Big Oil cannot lead us away from oil.