Let’s get the facts correct. California’s problems didn’t start with deregulation, they began with regulation and price controls that came about under Democratic governance. It’s also curious how the Democrats had eight years under Clinton to address this issue, refused to, and now blame it on the Republicans.

But all that aside, as far as the president’s energy plan is concerned, he is right about the need for new power plants. However drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to fuel them isn’t the answer. It isn’t necessary and it’s dangerous for the environment.

The president’s plan to use technology to reduce coal emissions to the level of natural gas is the way to go. We have more coal in America than the Arabs have oil.
The Democrats have proposed conservation as the major solution. It alone won’t solve the problem. As long as our population continues to increase, and technology continues to march, the overall rate of demand will continue to grow. Conservation is nothing more than a temporary delay of the inevitable — not enough generating capacity to meet basic needs. Conservation works as a stop gap measure — but then what?

We need to build some new power plants to meet the demand as well as continue to pursue making alternate forms of generation such as wind and solar viable and cost effective — which they aren’t now.

The problem with these is more political than technical. Wind and solar generation take massive amounts of specific types of land. Environmentalists — a major Democratic constituency — want the land left untouched. Yet they don’t want to build new fossil fuel or nuclear plants which take very little land in comparison — and generate thousands of times the power, either. Perhaps a compromise would be to build new plants as additional units at existing power plant sites where they can tap into the existing distribution grid, so no new transmission lines have to be built.

Actual construction of a conventional power plant is a five year project — not to mention a year of design and the requisite amount of time for the “process” of environmental obstructionism. So we’re somewhere in the 8 to 10 year time frame. Nuclear plants take even longer, but that’s another debate entirely.

We have to conserve, but before the first new plant can come on line we’re going to be out of energy to conserve. The laws of supply and demand will drive the price up and we’ll have poor people and seniors on fixed incomes in the colder climates having to choose between heat and food, or heat and medicine. That’s unacceptable.

We don’t completely agree with Bush’s approach — but the fact we need additional generating capacity is undeniable. It’s time for everyone to become part of the solution and for politics to stop being part of the problem.