We have been hearing about the lack of an "Energy Policy" for the USA for at least 20 years. What I have been listening for is some one proposing an "Energy Policy" and I have only heard a deafening silence from every one. Do you think that you would recognize an "Energy Policy" if you ever heard one? I'm not sure. Why haven't we heard an "Energy Policy" from any of our politicians? Has the congress ever turned down an "Energy Policy" that was proposed by any President? I don't think so. All this talk about the lack of an "Energy Policy" has been pure BS that sounds good when said, but has no real meaning. That is my position. If you know me, then you know that I "do" have an "Energy Policy" and that I base it on facts and logic, so here goes.
First, we need to set the stage so that we are all on the same page. This will not take long. There are all kinds of energy here on Earth and some are less expensive than others. The price of different types of energy is established by the "free" market without any games being played by the government. The price of energy from coal is now the lowest and next is natural gas. It goes up from there. Next is oil and nuclear. If we keep going, we get to wind and solar. These are the most expensive. Next, consider what you are going to use to pay for the energy. I borrowed this from the Communists. They claim that all value or wealth is "labor". I tend to agree with that concept. Further, we know that some "labor" has more value than other "labor". The value of "labor" is not determined by the hands on a clock. The reason that I presented the above is that at some point, we need to determine if the value of some form of energy is greater than the value of the "labor" that it took to create it. This is where green energy gets off. So far and into the foreseeable future, green energy is not worth our "labor". Face the facts.
One final point about energy is the fact that the USA is not isolated in the world of energy. We compete with the rest of the world for energy. Some countries have more or less energy than others, plus the needs for energy per person and countries also vary. The bottom line is that we are in competition for energy and the way that the world's energy is going to be allocated is on the basis of "price" or the free market. If you have the money, you can buy energy and if you don't you can't buy it. This is the fact. Energy here on Earth is limited, but it "will" last forever. It will keep getting more and more expensive as the demand stays in balance with what people can pay. The demand will eventually come down as the population declines due to the cost of energy and food, but the price will not come down to save the population.
Given all this, what should our "Energy Policy" be? Remember that the price of energy is set in the free market based on our ability to "pay". See, we are getting to my final point. The word is "pay". That is where our "Energy Policy" starts. Our ability to "pay" is the policy. What we need to do is to figure out how we can earn more. If our labor is worth more than other people's in the world, we will have the money to buy energy while they do not. The worth of our labor has to be determined in the "free" market, not by the extortion methods of unions or governments. It is real simple, we have to develop our skills so that we can produce more per a combination of capital and labor than anyone else in the world. Since most of the world has the same access to capital that we do, the only area where we can make a difference is our labor. We have to be stronger and smarter, plus we have to guards against wasting our capital and labor on things that do not produce more than the cost inputs. If we waste our labor, countries who don't waste their labor will beat us out for the energy. The best examples of waste is the capital and labor that is being invested in green energy. If we keep going down that road, we will be bankrupted. It will be like the people on Easter Island carving those big stone heads as a way to get food for their over populated island. The people kept their jobs carving the heads while they all starved.
Now do you have it? My "Energy Policy" is for us to do every thing that we can to increase the productivity of our labor. What are these things? Education. We have to figure out how to educate our citizens faster and cheaper. We have to also get a much larger percentage of our population educated to their individual maximum. We have to work harder and longer. That means more hours per week and to an older age.
If other countries work smarter and harder, so will we. In the past many countries were not big users of energy, but they are now and they are getting better educated and working harder. Like it or not, if we want to be able to buy energy, we will have to stay ahead. That is our future or the down side is that our population will have to be greatly reduced until our natural resources can supplement the value that we can't produce. It would be as if we became modern "hunter gatherers".
Do you have some other "Energy Policy"? Let's hear it.
PS----
You can create heat by rubbing your hands together so why don't we all heat our homes by rubbing our hands together? If Obama had his way, that is the way we would all be heating our homes. I think we would be better off if we were more productive than the other guy. It is like the story about the two guys who meet up with a mean bear in the woods. The first guy bends over and ties his shoe strings tighter. The other pipes up that, "you can't out run that bear". The first guy replys, "all I have to do is to out run you".
