First of all Bush’s unilateral repudiation of Kyoto was a major mistake. Even if you buy his argument that Kyoto is unfair to the industrialized world (which I don’t). The rest of the world believes that Global Warming is a real and present danger. The USA is one of the largest contributers of greenhouse gasses. He could easy have just ignored Kyoto (as Clinton effectively did) and gotten what he wanted with no major harm to world opinion of us. Instead, he spoke his mind (without first discussing it with his handlers?) and made the USA look like an asshole/bully.
This is bad PR no matter how you slice it, and a mistake he will no doubt regret.
Now on to his reasons.
Reason A) The US is in the midst of an energy crisis.
Bullshit. What we have is an electrical power crisis. Actually not even that. We have a peak demand electrical power crisis. Calling it an energy crisis is nothing more than a handout to oil and gas producers. We have plenty of oil and gas and no reason to believe that the Saudis are about to turn off the hose.
Oil and Gas are not electricity. They can be turned into electricity in power plants. But California has, for the last 10 years, not built any plants (mostly because of the NIMBY effect?). Instead, they buy more and more from the grid, which means they import power from other states.
Normally, northern states use more power in the winter than the summer, and southern states use more power in the summer than in the winter. So this works out nicely. But, since California has finally grown to the point of needing to import power all year, this equation is about to go badly wrong.
The other problem that California has is purely political. The local power companies must by power on the open market, but can only sell it at fixed prices. The only way to fix this is to change the laws.
There are 5 ways to fix this, 3 short term and 2 long term.
- Conservation, use less especially during peak hours. The problem with this (only from Bush’s perspective ;)) is that this is only good for consumers. It actually costs the energy lobby money. I predict that you will never hear him mention this other than sotto-voce even though it is the best solution overall for consumers.
Kyoto effect - positive.
- Change the laws governing interstate/intrastate sales of power so that power companies aren’t caught in a forced-bankrupcy scenario like they are in Californial. This would probably imply setting cost limits on interstate power sales, which I don’t see the energy lobby liking very much, and thus Bush will not admit this is an option.
Kyoto effect - neutral?
- Allow older ‘dirty’ power plants to run during peak times, even though they violate clean air standards and don’t produce power as efficiently as newer ones. This option he will like very much because it puts more money in the pockets of his friends. IMO, this should be an absolute last resort, but I suspect you will see this treated as as the first and only defense because it is the only short term option that puts more money in the hands of Bush’s friends.
Kyoto effect - negative
Of course, this is also the only short term option that would make it impossible for us to try and comply with Kyoto, so Kyoto just has to go for the ‘good of the country’ :rolleyes:
- Long term: Increase the efficiency of transmission lines. Less lost power, means more power available at your house without any increase in power generation needed. The problem with this is that it has a very large up-front cost. The benefit is that this is sort of a ‘works’ program. Major construction projects are economic stimulous, so this would be good for the economy, but would probably send energy prices up in the short term. (whether they would or not would largely depend on whether the Gov helped to fund the switchover or not).
Kyoto effect - positive. (less generation needed)
- Long term: Build new, more efficient (and cleaner) power plants. This one also has a large, up front cost. Once again it would be a large construction project and good for the economy whereever the plant actually goes. This one has the major downside of the NIMBY effect and the political battles necessary to allow a plant to be built at a particular location are huge. On the other hand, if we are truly in a power crisis, then normal approvals process can be suspended and plants built by executive/congressional order.
Kyoto effect - positive. (generation likely cleaner)
Reason B) Compliance would hurt the US economy.
Once again: BULLSHIT!. It would hurt some energy producers (mostly coal in the near term). But it would also act as economic stimulous as changing over to cleaner more efficient power use involves capital building, and someone gets paid to do the building.
Even conservation is good for all parts of the economy EXCEPT the energy lobby. And if the US is the one to develop the new cleaner technology that the world is reqired to use (by Kyoto), then we then have a new product to export, which is also good for the local economy.
tj
