Energy is shaping up to be a central issue of the upcoming presidential
election, as Americans adjust to the reality that the decades of cheap
gasoline and electricity are over.
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain says he wants to
address climate, but based on speeches given this week, he seems more
interested in continuing Bush’s dirty energy policies for more coal,
oil and nuclear energy.
First he called for lifting the moratorium on offshore oil drilling on
the U.S. coastal shelf–echoing President Bush’s claim that more
domestic oil will increase energy security and lower gas prices at the
pump.
Oil companies have not yet exhausted the offshore fields to
which they have access, yet if all the offshore fields were open to
drilling they would yield about 18 billion barrels of oil, enough to
meet current US consumption for about 2 1/2 years. However, it would
take several years for the big oil companies to tap those supplies, by
which time worldwide demand will undoubtedly drive prices even higher.
The new supply will do nothing more than expand the fortunes of the big
oil companies and perhaps bring U.S. gas prices back down to $5/gallon
from $7 or $8 for a few months.
In addition, opening those fields will increase the risk of oil spills
darkening U.S. beaches and harming the environment and tourist
industries. Not to mention that, in regards to climate change, we would
do better to leave all that carbon sequestered below the earth and out
of our atmosphere.
And on the topic of sequestering, McCain pledged $2 billion a
year to "clean coal" technologies, including initiatives to capture and
store carbon dioxide emissions underground–a technology that is
untested, potentially dangerous and subject to a twenty-year timeline
(at best) that will not help us stop and reverse the increase of yearly
greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, as called for by climate
change scientists. As a result, many believe that carbon capture and
sequestration is a false hope at best and a distraction at worst.
In addition, anyone who understood the devastation caused by the
mountain-top removal process of coal mining could not say that more
coal use is a good solution to our growing energy crisis.
And finally, McCain said he wants 45 new nuclear reactors built in the
U.S. by 2030, despite the skyrocketing costs of building them, the
opposition of leaders in the field and the fact that nuclear energy is not clean for two reasons.
First, uranium, the fuel for nuclear reaction, is becoming more scarce,
and the mining process requires vast amounts of energy and carbon
dioxide emissions. Secondly, the radioactive waste produced by nuclear
power will remain in our environment for thousands of years. Finding a
place to store it, and doing so safely, is already a tremendous difficulty for the nuclear reactors already in service.
Around the world, nations are watching the U.S. in the hopes that the
next presidential administration will take the lead in addressing
climate change and saving the planet from the worst of its effects.
John McCain seems to want it both ways. He wants to appear to be that
leader, while continuing to route the nation’s weath to the same big,
dirty energy corporations.
If he wants to demonstrate true leadership on energy and climate
change, he should return to the Senate for a week and hammer out a
compromise between Democrats and Republicans for extending the tax
incentives for renewable energy.
Loading...