July 4's real skyrockets are in the mail
If thoughts of Independence Day ring a little hollow now at the gas pump, that’s understandable. For the outrageous gasoline prices reflect our outrageous dependence on foreign oil. And it’s of our own design.
We’ve prohibited expansion, or even maintenance, of domestic oil production, so U.S. companies today account for only a tenth of our oil use. By “we” I mean Congress, including government agencies. They all cater to what environmentalists want--a squeaky clean, super-safe country. If that also means fewer jobs and more restrictions and higher costs, tough toenails.
Environmentalists are also forcing us Virginians this summer to start forking over more cash for another vital product--electricity. Like with gasoline, we keep using more of it while thwarting its producers.
Oil gets the headlines, but consider: America uses only 15 percent more of it today than during the last energy crisis in 1973. But electricity use has skyrocketed 115 percent
For the moment, disregard those silly light-bulb regulations, which are mere band-aids. More seriously, we have just begun to pay Dominion Virginia Power between 18 and 30 percent more for our electricity, and commercial users get whacked even harder.
And again, who’s to blame? Right again. You may have heard or read about Dominion’s efforts to add a nuclear generator to its North Anna facility. It should. We’ll need its electricity soon. But there’s no telling when if ever the project will get off the ground, thanks to fierce opposition from anti-nuke protestors. It’s the same story all over the country.
And just try building a hydro-electric dam to generate juice anywhere in our fair land. Or start a new coal plant for the same purpose. The deck is stacked against us.
The stackers are the environmentalists who are whining, for example, that the Bush administration is fixing to make it easier to build coal-fired power plants near national parks. They are joined by coal haters nationally who seem to raise shriller fears the longer the earth’s weather remains rather cool, thank you very much. Other countries covet the coal our environmentalists hate. We export huge volumes from Virginia.
So others pollute? So what? Cap and trade us! They’re not dainty and squeaky clean like us. And by the way, virtually all the increased consumption of oil last year came in Asia, not here.
Our electricity problems extend well beyond the higher bills. Morning-after news reports of a typical thunderstorm in the Washington area typically note how many thousands of homes remain without power.
And check this out: “By as early as next year our demand for electricity will exceed reliable supply in New England, Texas and the West and, by 2011, in New York and the mid-Atlantic region. A failure of a power plant, or a summer-afternoon surge in the load, could make for a blackout or brownout..... Price shocks are already occurring. In May, long before peak summer demand, the wholesale price of juice jumped twofold in Texas, to $4 per kwh...New Yorkers may suffer a summer of price discontent if regulators are right about peak wholesale prices jumping by up to 90 percent.”--Mark P. Mills, in Forbes, June 30 issue.
Beyond generating the electricity, there’s also the growing problem of getting it to our house outlets. (And woe unto us when the electric “plug-in” cars start draining the system further.)
As one blogger put it recently, the most amazing thing about the electrical grid is that it works at all. Although it usually works, it doesn’t in even moderately exceptional cases, such as peak demand for air conditioning. It failed during the California power crisis several years ago.
But don’t you see, those towering power lines over our neighborhoods look so tacky. And by golly, our neighbors have done something about the problem. Here in Stafford they have convinced Dominion to bury a new line westward from Aquia Harbour rather than erect towers. I’ll believe it when I see it. If it happens, my electric bill will go up some more.
Also, big-money environmentalists have forced Dominion to re-route its planned westward extension of a major new power line, from a straight efficient path through the Virginia horse country (whose residents whinnied the loudest) southward like a fishhook through southern Fauquier County at much greater cost. Again we’ll pay for it. As blogger Don Surber puts it, we‘re “...allowing rich, elitist liberals to gaze out of their mansion windows at pristine scenery – while consuming 20 times the electricity of us commoners.”
In other words, my friends (as John McCain would say), I’m afraid our country is becoming fatally fastidious. Our pocketbooks are only the first to suffer.
We’ve prohibited expansion, or even maintenance, of domestic oil production, so U.S. companies today account for only a tenth of our oil use. By “we” I mean Congress, including government agencies. They all cater to what environmentalists want--a squeaky clean, super-safe country. If that also means fewer jobs and more restrictions and higher costs, tough toenails.
Environmentalists are also forcing us Virginians this summer to start forking over more cash for another vital product--electricity. Like with gasoline, we keep using more of it while thwarting its producers.
Oil gets the headlines, but consider: America uses only 15 percent more of it today than during the last energy crisis in 1973. But electricity use has skyrocketed 115 percent
For the moment, disregard those silly light-bulb regulations, which are mere band-aids. More seriously, we have just begun to pay Dominion Virginia Power between 18 and 30 percent more for our electricity, and commercial users get whacked even harder.
And again, who’s to blame? Right again. You may have heard or read about Dominion’s efforts to add a nuclear generator to its North Anna facility. It should. We’ll need its electricity soon. But there’s no telling when if ever the project will get off the ground, thanks to fierce opposition from anti-nuke protestors. It’s the same story all over the country.
And just try building a hydro-electric dam to generate juice anywhere in our fair land. Or start a new coal plant for the same purpose. The deck is stacked against us.
The stackers are the environmentalists who are whining, for example, that the Bush administration is fixing to make it easier to build coal-fired power plants near national parks. They are joined by coal haters nationally who seem to raise shriller fears the longer the earth’s weather remains rather cool, thank you very much. Other countries covet the coal our environmentalists hate. We export huge volumes from Virginia.
So others pollute? So what? Cap and trade us! They’re not dainty and squeaky clean like us. And by the way, virtually all the increased consumption of oil last year came in Asia, not here.
Our electricity problems extend well beyond the higher bills. Morning-after news reports of a typical thunderstorm in the Washington area typically note how many thousands of homes remain without power.
And check this out: “By as early as next year our demand for electricity will exceed reliable supply in New England, Texas and the West and, by 2011, in New York and the mid-Atlantic region. A failure of a power plant, or a summer-afternoon surge in the load, could make for a blackout or brownout..... Price shocks are already occurring. In May, long before peak summer demand, the wholesale price of juice jumped twofold in Texas, to $4 per kwh...New Yorkers may suffer a summer of price discontent if regulators are right about peak wholesale prices jumping by up to 90 percent.”--Mark P. Mills, in Forbes, June 30 issue.
Beyond generating the electricity, there’s also the growing problem of getting it to our house outlets. (And woe unto us when the electric “plug-in” cars start draining the system further.)
As one blogger put it recently, the most amazing thing about the electrical grid is that it works at all. Although it usually works, it doesn’t in even moderately exceptional cases, such as peak demand for air conditioning. It failed during the California power crisis several years ago.
But don’t you see, those towering power lines over our neighborhoods look so tacky. And by golly, our neighbors have done something about the problem. Here in Stafford they have convinced Dominion to bury a new line westward from Aquia Harbour rather than erect towers. I’ll believe it when I see it. If it happens, my electric bill will go up some more.
Also, big-money environmentalists have forced Dominion to re-route its planned westward extension of a major new power line, from a straight efficient path through the Virginia horse country (whose residents whinnied the loudest) southward like a fishhook through southern Fauquier County at much greater cost. Again we’ll pay for it. As blogger Don Surber puts it, we‘re “...allowing rich, elitist liberals to gaze out of their mansion windows at pristine scenery – while consuming 20 times the electricity of us commoners.”
In other words, my friends (as John McCain would say), I’m afraid our country is becoming fatally fastidious. Our pocketbooks are only the first to suffer.
posted by Ben Blankenship at
5:16 PM
