alternative energy

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Greens vs Energy

This Earth Day, the Ayn Rand Center wants to help you understand the destructive campaign environmentalists have pursued for decades against energy production.

Environmentalists say they only want to protect us from the dangers of CO2 emissions, but when you look at the history of what energy projects they oppose, it becomes clear that environmentalists are not so concerned about carbon emissions—they fight against every form of practical, cheap energy regardless of whether it emits CO2 (like fossil fuels) or not (like nuclear and hydro).

What is their real agenda? Should oil and nuclear be viewed as “dirty” and “dangerous?” Do solar and wind represent the future of energy as the environmentalists would have you believe? What did the recent tsunami in Japan actually reveal about the safety of nuclear energy?

Check out the materials on this blog by ARC writers and speakers that expose how environmentalists consistently oppose the kind of energy industrial development requires.

We also hosted a live Q & A session this morning from our headquarters in Irvine, CA, where resident fellows Dr. Keith Lockitch and Alex Epstein answered viewers’ questions about “green energy,” environmentalism, the recent nuclear scare in Japan, and related issues. A recording of this Q&A session can be viewed below.


Updates

“Greens vs. Energy” by Alex Epstein published in American Thinker

Keith Lockitch quoted in National Geographic article on Earth Day

Alex Epstein and Keith Lockitch discuss energy and environmentalism on the PJTV news show “Front Page”

Recording of Q&A session:

Read the rest of this entry »


“Green Energy”: A Recipe for Energy Poverty

Proponents of “green energy” claim that oil and coal are “dirty” addictions and that “renewable” energy sources, like solar and wind, represent the future of energy. Should we get on board with their plans?

Not according to ARC fellow Alex Epstein. Last Earth Day he wrote:

Fact: there are three proven categories of industrial-scale energy: carbon-based, which produces about 86% of the world’s energy; nuclear, which produces roughly 6%, and hydroelectric, which produces another 6%. Revealingly, most environmentalists oppose nuclear and hydroelectric (both emissions-free) as insufficiently “green”; in the last several decades they have successfully made nuclear plants nearly impossible to build and shut down hundreds of dams.

That means a meager 2% of energy is produced by “green” sources such as wind, solar, and plant/animal materials (“biomass”). Is this a case of promising technologies denied a chance to develop? Hardly; they have been heavily subsidized in the United States for decades. Consider: In 1977 Jimmy Carter proclaimed that he would “develop permanent and reliable new energy sources. The most promising, of course, is solar energy, for which most of the technology is already available.”

But even with decades of subsidies, “green” proposals have failed to deliver the industrial-scale energy required to fuel our cars, light our homes, and make possible the daily activities of our modern economy—like running hospitals, transporting goods, and growing food on an industrial scale.

Why do “green” alternatives like solar and wind perform so poorly? According to Mr. Epstein:

“Green energy” has failed because it lacks the physical properties necessary to provide industrial-scale power: a combination of abundance, high energy concentration, and reliability. For example, where coal, oil, and natural gas can be burned whenever power is needed, at the exact quantity needed, wind and sunlight can be harnessed only when the weather cooperates—and electricity can’t be stored for a rainy day. Thus, they are always used as supplemental, not primary, sources of power on electric grids. Statistics about Denmark getting 10% or 20% of electricity from solar and wind are misleading; that is the maximum they can get without seriously endangering the grid with power outages and electronics-frying power overloads.

Yet despite the physical shortcomings of “green” alternatives, their proponents continue to push for political programs that would force a shift to these meager energy forms. What would this mean for our daily lives? In his essay “Energy Privation: The Environmentalist Campaign Against Energy” in Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, ARC fellow Dr. Keith Lockitch considers what life would be like without industrial-scale energy. He says:

Today industrial-scale energy fuels a global trade worth trillions of dollars, with automated factory equipment churning out all manner of life-enhancing goods and with petroleum-powered trucks, freight trains, and cargo ships carrying them all over the planet.

Yet even today, large numbers of people still suffer for lack of industrial-scale energy. About 1.5 billion people have no electric lighting, refrigeration, computer technology, electronic devices or medical equipment—no access to electricity at all. About 2.5 billion people—more than one-third of the world’s population—have no source of energy for heating or cooking other than biomass fuels such as wood or animal dung, and the resulting smoke from open fires is a leading cause of death in undeveloped countries. The World Health Organization estimates that about 1.6 million people die every year from respiratory diseases directly attributable to indoor air pollution—almost as many as die annually from AIDS.

Similarly, for lack of freshwater and sewage infrastructure built and powered using industrial-scale energy, “over 1 billion people globally lack access to safe drinking-water supplies, while 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation.” Consequently, “diseases related to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene result in an estimated 1.7 million deaths every year.” And for lack of an adequate capacity for food production and distribution, chronic undernourishment affects more than 1 billion people. The result is that in parts of the world today—particularly in parts of Africa—life expectancy is under forty years. It hasn’t been that low in the industrialized world since the eighteenth century—and today, in industrialized countries life expectancy is closer to eighty years.

Industrial-scale energy is an indispensable, life-saving value. It has completely transformed human life for the better in the industrialized world. And the benefits of industrial development will come to undeveloped countries only if they develop the infrastructure for the large-scale production and use of energy, as India and China are currently doing.

All of the life-saving, life-enhancing goods and services we enjoy today in industrialized society require massive amounts of cheap, concentrated, and reliable energy—and solar and wind just don’t cut it. But if “green energy” proponents get their way, what quality of life can we expect in the future?

If you have questions about the “green energy” movement, be sure to submit them here and watch the live Q&A on Earth Day (tomorrow, Friday, April 22) at 9 a.m. PST via ARC’s Facebook page to hear your questions answered by Dr. Keith Lockitch and Alex Epstein.


What “Going Green” Really Means

When the proponents today of “green” energy call for massive reductions in carbon emissions, they lead us to believe that their goal is to protect human beings from the negative consequences of a warmer planet. But is it?

The Ayn Rand Institute has been saying for years that, while the environmentalist movement has led the public to believe its goal is human welfare, this is a ruse. As Peter Schwartz wrote in “Man vs. Nature” more than a decade ago:

The common view of environmentalism is that its goal is the betterment of mankind—that it wants to purify our air and clean up our parks so that we can live healthier and happier lives. But that is a very superficial interpretation. When environmentalists are faced with a conflict between the “interests” of nature and those of man, it is man who is invariably sacrificed. If there is a choice between electric power for human beings and swimming lanes for salmon, it is always the fish that are given priority. If there is a choice between cutting down trees for human use and leaving them untouched for the spotted owl, it is always the bird’s home that is saved and human habitation that goes unbuilt. Why?

Because the requirements of human life are not the standard by which environmentalists make their judgments. Their goal is to maintain nature in its virginal state—despite the demonstrable harm this inflicts upon people. They want to preserve wildernesses, to enshrine wetlands, to tear down dams and levees—i.e., to prevent the man-made “intrusions” upon nature.

What does it mean if wilderness, not human life, is the standard by which environmentalists operate? In Schwartz’s words, “[it] means that man must suffer so that nature remains pristine.”

ARC fellow Dr. Keith Lockitch expands on this point:

Everything we do to sustain our lives has an impact on nature. Every value we create to advance our well-being—every ounce of food we grow, every structure we build, every iPhone we manufacture—is produced by extracting raw materials and reshaping them to serve our needs. Every good thing in our lives comes from altering nature for our own benefit.

Human survival, by its nature, requires re-shaping the earth to meet our needs. So if the environmentalist goal is to preserve the earth as is, it is human survival and progress that must be sacrificed. One of the most concrete, gross examples of this is the environmentalist campaign against DDT in the 1960’s. Dr. Lockitch explains:

The environmental crusade against DDT began with Rachel Carson’s antipesticide diatribe “Silent Spring,” published in 1962 at the height of the worldwide antimalaria campaign. The widespread spraying of DDT had caused a spectacular drop in malaria incidence—Sri Lanka, for example, reported 2.8 million malaria victims in 1948, but by 1963 it had only 17. Yet Carson’s book made no mention of this. It said nothing of DDT’s crucial role in eradicating malaria in industrialized countries, or of the tens of millions of lives saved by its use.

Instead, Carson filled her book with misinformation—alleging, among other claims, that DDT causes cancer. Her unsubstantiated assertion that continued DDT-use would unleash a cancer epidemic generated a panicked fear of the pesticide that endures as public opinion to this day.

[…]

In the few minutes it has taken you to read this article, over a thousand people have contracted malaria and half a dozen have died. This is the life-or-death consequence of viewing pestilent insects as a “necessary” component of a “vibrant biosphere” and seeking a “reasonable accommodation” with them.

Similarly, today’s “green” energy proponents oppose every form of practical, cheap energy in order to minimize the human impact of industrialization on the earth. In his essay “Energy Privation: The Environmentalist Campaign Against Energy,” Dr. Lockitch notes:

Oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear power, hydroelectricity. Altogether, these sources provide essentially all of the world’s energy—more than 98% of it, to be exact. They collectively supply more than 96% of the world’s electricity, while petroleum alone accounts for more than 94% of the world’s transportation fuel. These energy sources are what currently power our modern world, and, given their indispensable role in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and all the other elements of industrial civilization, it’s no exaggeration to say that they are literally keeping us all alive.

Yet, mainstream environmental groups systematically reject each one as unacceptable forms of energy.

With “green” alternatives like solar and wind being fantasy energy solutions, could the motive of “green” energy proponents actually be to oppose human welfare in the name of erasing man’s “footprint” from the earth? That is the controversial proposition Ayn Rand argues for at length in her book Return of the Primitive.

If you have questions about the “green energy” campaign and its opposition to every practical form of energy, or about environmentalism more broadly, be sure to submit them here and watch the live Q&A on Earth Day (Friday, April 22) at 9 a.m. PST to hear your questions answered by Dr. Keith Lockitch and ARC fellow Alex Epstein.

 


Industrial Development Promotes Human Life

For years, environmentalists have warned us that economic progress under capitalism paves the way for future devastation. Smoking coal stacks blacken our lungs. Growing populations set the stage for widespread famine. Gas-guzzling SUVs warm the planet and lead to frequent hurricanes and droughts.

Ayn Rand held a radically different view of the impact of industrial development on human survival. In 1971, she wrote in the essay “The Anti-Industrial Revolution”:

In Western Europe, in the preindustrial Middle Ages, man’s life expectancy was 30 years. In the nineteenth century, Europe’s population grew by 300 percent—which is the best proof of the fact that for the first time in human history, industry gave the great masses of people a chance to survive.

If it were true that a heavy concentration of industry is destructive to human life, one would find life expectancy declining in the more advanced countries. But it has been rising steadily. Here are the figures on life expectancy in the United States (from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company):

1900—47.3 years

1920—53 years

1940—60 years

1968—70.2 years (the latest figures compiled)

Anyone over 30 years of age today, give a silent “Thank you” to the nearest, grimiest, sootiest smokestacks you can find.

Rand viewed industrial development as an enormous positive that greatly improved the quality of life for everyone. Far from it being an impediment to human survival, she argued that industrialization dramatically changed for the better how people dealt with their environment. For example, she noted in the same essay:

Without machines and technology, the task of mere survival is a terrible, mind-and-body-wrecking ordeal. In “nature,” the struggle for food, clothing and shelter consumes all of a man’s energy and spirit; it is a losing struggle—the winner is any flood, earthquake or swarm of locusts. (Consider the 500,000 bodies left in the wake of a single flood in Pakistan; they had been men who lived without technology.)

ARC fellow Dr. Keith Lockitch expands on this point:

Consider the poster child of global warming alarm: Hurricane Katrina. In 1970, a severe tropical cyclone struck the coast of the Bay of Bengal, in what is today Bangladesh. It is estimated that the storm was a category 3 cyclone, and the death toll it left in its wake was estimated to have been as high as three hundred thousand people. Compare this with Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in 2005. By the time it made landfall Katrina was also a category 3 storm and the directly affected population was comparable to that in Bangladesh. Yet the number of people dead or missing was far, far less—estimates put it at around two thousand

Without denying the tragedy of the lives lost to Katrina, two thousand versus three hundred thousand is an incredible difference. In assessing what accounts for that difference, one can debate the relative roles of social, political, geographic and climatologic factors, but there can be no question of the fundamental and decisive importance of the technology and infrastructure made possible by industrial capitalism. Unlike the helpless victims of the Bangladesh storm, the citizens of New Orleans could rely on advanced early warning systems and a functioning communications infrastructure, modern vehicles and paved roads to facilitate evacuation and transport relief supplies, sturdier homes and structures and advanced flood control systems, etc. Indeed, much of this even failed in New Orleans: the levees were breached, many people couldn’t or wouldn’t evacuate, the relief effort was delayed, and so on. Yet, even in spite of these failures, hundreds of thousands of lives were saved by the products of industrial technology and industrial-scale energy.

This is the real lesson of today’s climate-related tragedies: the immeasurable degree to which industrial development under capitalism has reduced our vulnerability to climate threats.

Read the rest of Dr. Lockitch’s paper here. Read more of Ayn Rand’s view on environmentalism here.

If you have questions about how industrial development has made us far less vulnerable to climate disasters or want to know about how it has kept us safer from other environmental dangers, like pollution, disease, resource shortages and more, be sure to submit your questions here and watch the live Q&A on Earth Day (Friday, April 22) at 9 a.m. PST to hear your questions answered by Alex Epstein and Dr. Keith Lockitch!


Gearing Up for Earth Day—Live Q&A on April 22!

As Earth Day (April 22) approaches, the Ayn Rand Center wants to help you understand the destructive campaign environmentalists have pursued for decades against energy production.

Environmentalists say they only want to protect us from the dangers of CO2 emissions, but when you look at the history of what energy projects they oppose, it becomes clear that environmentalists are not so concerned about carbon emissions—they fight against every form of practical, cheap energy regardless of whether it emits CO2 (like fossil fuels) or not (like nuclear and hydro).

As ARC fellow Dr. Keith Lockitch explains in his essay “Energy Privation: The Environmentalist Campaign Against Energy” in the new collection Why Businessmen Need Philosophy:

Environmentalism is a broad social and political movement, with roots stretching back decades and with a diverse array of leaders, groups, institutions, and perspectives. But despite its diversity, it is, in essence, an intellectual movement animated by a particular ideology—by a set of philosophic premises that shape its actions and guide its ultimate direction. And the basic moral premise at the root of environmentalism is the premise that nature is something to be left alone—to be preserved untouched by human activity.

To the opponents of small hydro projects, for instance, the possibility of “cumulative impacts” on salmon runs or the habitat of the Furbish lousewort renders irrelevant the numerous homes that could be supplied with electricity. To Myers and his fellow desert activists, if a patch of scorched terrain is favored by the desert tortoise or the bighorn sheep, it should never be “bladed off” for the sake of any sort of industrial development—not even a solar power plant. This moral animus against human “intrusion” upon nature creates a basic conflict between the goals of the environmentalist movement and the needs of human life.

In the days leading up to Earth Day, Voices for Reason will be posting materials by ARC writers and speakers that expose how environmentalists consistently oppose the kind of energy industrial development requires.

Then on Earth Day, which is on Friday, April 22, we will be hosting a live Q&A session from our headquarters in Irvine, CA, where resident fellows Keith Lockitch and Alex Epstein will answer any questions you have about Earth Day, environmentalism, the recent nuclear scare in Japan, and related issues.

The event will be held at 9 a.m. PST and can be watched via the Ayn Rand Center Facebook page (you won’t need a Facebook account to attend the event).

If you have questions you would like answered, you can submit them via the Facebook page for this event (you will need a Facebook account for this). While the event is taking place, you can log onto Facebook and chat with us and others also watching. If you have a follow-up question, you can ask it at that time.

We encourage you to submit your questions!  And be sure to RSVP to the event if you are planning to attend.


Celebrate “Human Achievement Hour” this Saturday

h.a.h.The Ayn Rand Center (ARC) along with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) invite you to celebrate industrial civilization and defend the energy that makes it possible during “Human Achievement Hour” this Saturday at 8:30 p.m. EST.

The event coincides with “Earth Hour,” which encourages people worldwide to turn off their lights as a protest against carbon emissions. During “Human Achievement Hour,” we encourage you to leave your lights on and fully enjoy the benefits of industrial civilization made possible by burning fossil fuels. Beginning at 8 p.m. EST, CEI is hosting a celebration at its offices in Washington D.C. and via livestream.

Back in 2009, ARC fellow Keith Lockitch explained the importance of standing against the “Earth Hour” campaign:

Politicians and environmentalists, including those behind Earth Hour, are not calling on people just to change a few light bulbs, they are calling for a truly massive reduction in carbon emissions—as much as 80 percent below 1990 levels. Because our energy is overwhelmingly carbon-based (fossil fuels provide more than 80 percent of world energy), and because the claims of abundant “green energy” from breezes and sunbeams are a myth—this necessarily means a massive reduction in our energy use.

People don’t have a clear view of what this would mean in practice. We, in the industrialized world, take our abundant energy for granted and don’t consider just how much we benefit from its use in every minute of every day. Driving our cars to work and school, sitting in our lighted, heated homes and offices, powering our computers and countless other labor-saving appliances, we count on the indispensable values that industrial energy makes possible: hospitals and grocery stores, factories and farms, international travel and global telecommunications. It is hard for us to project the degree of sacrifice and harm that proposed climate policies would force upon us.

This blindness to the vital importance of energy is precisely what Earth Hour exploits. It sends the comforting-but-false message: Cutting off fossil fuels would be easy and even fun! People spend the hour stargazing and holding torch-lit beach parties; restaurants offer special candle-lit dinners. Earth Hour makes the renunciation of energy seem like a big party.

Participants spend an enjoyable sixty minutes in the dark, safe in the knowledge that the life-saving benefits of industrial civilization are just a light switch away. This bears no relation whatsoever to what life would actually be like under the sort of draconian carbon-reduction policies that climate activists are demanding: punishing carbon taxes, severe emissions caps, outright bans on the construction of power plants.

Forget one measly hour with just the lights off. How about Earth Month, without any form of fossil fuel energy? Try spending a month shivering in the dark without heating, electricity, refrigeration; without power plants or generators; without any of the labor-saving, time-saving, and therefore life-saving products that industrial energy makes possible.

Read the rest of Dr. Lockitch’s article here, and check out these links to other commentary by ARC writers on energy and environmentalism:

Read the rest of this entry »


Wind power in action

Whenever you hear about the miracles of wind power, always keep in mind one thing above all: because the wind blows erratically, and sometimes doesn’t blow at all, wind power is inherently unreliable. As I wrote in a recent piece on “green energy,”

where coal, oil, and natural gas can be burned whenever power is needed, at the exact quantity needed, wind and sunlight can be harnessed only when the weather cooperates–and electricity can’t be stored [in significant quantities] for a rainy day. Thus, they are always used as supplemental, not primary, sources of power on electric grids.

An engineer friend of mine recently witnessed this fact firsthand while driving east of San Francisco. He sent me this still picture that is as good as a movie–because the windmills were not moving. As he wrote: “Good thing Californians have reliable coal and gas-fired power on the grid elsewhere; Gaia did not see fit to bless us with breeze-based power today. Hundreds of them, dead still.”


Setting the record straight on “zero emissions”

Anytime you see an electric car you are likely to see a “zero emissions” sticker on it, implying that the driver of the car is driving without emitting CO2. Electric car companies are using this idea to market their cars, and to imply that those of us who drive gasoline-powered cars should feel guilty. For example, Coda Automotive, an electric car company, brags that its not-yet-existent sedan, once it exists, will be “An all-electric car to let you drive your way out from under the thumb of big oil. To help steer us away from climate change, polluted skies…”

It is true that electric motors do not emit CO2, and electric cars don’t have tailpipes that emit CO2 or anything else. But ask yourself (or Coda): Where does the electricity that charges the “zero emissions” car come from? Answer: It almost certainly comes from burning coal or natural gas, by far the leading sources of electricity production in America, because they produce the cheapest, most abundant power. Another question: What happens when you burn coal or natural gas to produce electricity? CO2 is emitted.

To call a car “zero emissions” because it generates CO2 at the power plant instead of the engine is intellectually indefensible–and dishonest. And it is a particularly dangerous form of dishonesty, because it promotes the idea that oil and other fossil fuels are dispensable to our standard of living. They are not.

Image: Wikimedia Commons


Green energy: neither free nor forever

old windmillOne argument sometimes heard in favor of green energy is that sources such as wind and solar are “free, forever.”  Al Gore, in particular, has said repeatedly that to end our “overdependence on outdated, heavily polluting carbon-based technologies . . . we need sources that are free forever, like the sun, wind and earth.” (See also here, here and here.)

On a superficial glance, this might seem to have a certain ring of plausibility. To use the energy in oil, coal and natural gas takes a lot of work and resources: the fuels have to be discovered, extracted, transported, processed, refined, and distributed—all at great effort and expense.

By contrast, sunlight and wind are flows of energy that already occur all by themselves in nature. Sunshine is, literally, a stream of electromagnetic energy flowing onto the earth. Similarly with wind, which consists of air particles that carry kinetic energy by the very fact of their being in motion. We can feel the effects of such energy without effort, just by sitting in the sun and enjoying the breeze.

But if you give this even a tiny amount of additional thought, you should quickly realize that the “free forever” argument is just plain silly.

Read the rest of this entry »


Energy at the speed of thought

tos-summer-2009Most people have become acclimated to an extremely slow rate of energy progress. While, say, our computers and electronics will rapidly decrease in price while increasing in quality, our energy bills look to be going nowhere but up. This despite the fact that today, as in the past several decades, government “energy planners” promise us an energy paradise of solar, wind, or whatever other technology they happen to favor.

My new essay, “Energy at the Speed of Thought,” tells the story of an entirely different sort of energy market.

[H]istory provides us ample grounds for optimism about the potential for a dynamic energy market with life-changing breakthroughs — because America once had exactly such a market. For most of the 1800s, an energy market existed unlike any we have seen in our lifetimes, a market devoid of government meddling. With every passing decade, consumers could buy cheaper, safer, and more convenient energy, thanks to continual breakthroughs in technology and efficiency — topped off by the discovery and mass availability of an alternative source of energy that, through its incredible cheapness and abundance, literally lengthened and improved the lives of nearly everyone in America and millions more around the world. That alternative energy was called petroleum. By studying the rise of oil, and the market in which it rose, we will see what a dynamic energy market looks like and what makes it possible. Many claim to want the “next oil”; to that end, what could be more important than understanding the conditions that gave rise to the first oil? 

In the essay, I argue that the amazing speed and impact of “the original alternative energy industry” is achievable today. What will it take? Go read “Energy at the Speed of Thought” to find out.