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Clark Vandeventer: U.S. Energy Solutions Would Generate More Jobs
Unemployment is at 9.8 percent nationwide. Santa Barbara County hast lost 3,700 jobs in the past year and 6,700 jobs dating back to August 2007. Those numbers donʼt include those who have taken drastic reductions in pay, or the construction industry, where many are working minimal hours. In times such as these, we need leaders who will focus on three things: jobs, jobs and jobs.
Everything ought to be on the table. Yet we see the opposite happening in our community. Santa Barbara Councilman Das Williams, also a candidate for Assembly, has made discouraging jobs and economic growth on the South Central Coast a full-time job.
Maybe I find myself picking on Williams more than others because heʼs a friend on Facebook so I see his status updates, but whether heʼs campaigning against leases for offshore drilling or for tax hikes on business, he seems to have a special zeal for discouraging job growth. In reality, Williams is no different than Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, or much of the political establishment. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to step in to tell President Barack Obama that while platitudes are nice, there is a real world called reality. Someone needs to say something similar to Williams, who like so many politicians seems to be incapable of aligning policy positions with the realities of our time.
Later this month, the Santa Barbara Technology and Industry Association will host an Economic Summit on the topic of the green economy. The Vandeventer Group, along with Noozhawk, is a co-sponsor of the discussion about how we can create public policy that will lead to economic growth on the South Central Coast and nationwide.
My friends on the right wouldn’t be the first you would expect to take a look at green stimulus to encourage economic growth, but in times such as these, practicality supersedes ideology. Itʼs time for my friends on the left to break the stranglehold of radical environmental special-interest groups and consider how tapping into our immense capacity to produce energy by Americans for Americans not only could unleash a massive economic sleeping giant, but it could be a net gain for the environment.
The vast majority of Americans want clean, cheap energy, and we want it produced by Americans for Americans. Incidentally, the one place on Earth Americans can obtain the cleanest, cheapest energy is right here at home.
While not a stand-alone answer, the first thing we must do is increase the number of offshore oil leases. Currently, only 15 percent of the available leases for drilling have been issued by the federal government. Opening up even part of the available leases could provide a steady flow of both oil and natural gas to the U.S. market and put Americans to work.
What is more is that this would be a net gain for the environment. Exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas off the outer continental shelf of the United States can be done in ways that keeps infrastructure out of sight — protecting our natural beauty — and environmentally friendly. Oil rigs are incredible statements of modern technology, often costing as much as $3 billion before a single drop of oil is pumped. When we drill here at home, they are highly regulated by U.S. environmental standards. It is a testament to both the technology and the rigs and the strict environmental standards that during the horrific days of Hurricane Katrina, not a single drop of oil spilled into the gulf.
On top of that, what can be environmentally friendly about import oil from every corner of the world to meet our energy needs? Or even worse, because of our lack of refineries, requiring that oil be shipped from the source, then to a refinery (often India or Mexico) and then finally being shipped to the United States? Our dependence on foreign oil not only means that jobs go elsewhere, but every 24 hours, about $2 billion of U.S. wealth is transferred to foreign powers. It happens not only when we fill up at the pump with gasoline, but when we pay our electric bill or plug in our electric cars.
T. Boone Pickens became a household name when gas prices peaked and he was suddenly running commercials talking about the largest transfer of wealth in human history: about $50 million a day to Russia, $150 million a day to Venezuela and $190 million a day to Saudi Arabia. We simply must decrease our dependence on foreign powers for energy.
However, in addition to decreasing the dependence on foreign powers for energy, we must decrease our dependence on oil. Oil is not the answer of the 21st century. We should tap into the power of oil available to us now, and doing so immediately will create jobs and reduce the cost of energy for millions of Americans, which will increase net disposable income. Remember, when Congress enacts public policy that increases the cost of goods and services, it is effectively a tax.
Oil is not the answer of the 21st century not only because of depleting supply — which is debatable — but because this dirty form of energy will not allow us to give our children and grandchildren the clean and beautiful world they deserve. So, what is the answer? Everything. By investing in these technologies today — through tough but reasonable oversight of existing energy options, permanent tax credits and even prize winnings awarded to private industry by the federal government — we can unleash a sleeping economic giant that will lead to jobs today and a cleaner environment tomorrow.
But we can’t simply say no more drilling for oil. If we could switch over the entire U.S. auto fleet to electric tomorrow, we wouldn’t be able to power the cars. The energy must come from somewhere. Solar, wind, hydrogen, clean coal, oil shale, biofuels and nuclear power should all be part of our energy future — and these are just the known sources of energy. I have no idea what sorts of energy solutions could possibly be developed should the government offer incentives for the development of clean energy produced by Americans for Americans.
First, we can’t continue to cripple ourselves by taking every option off the table. One incident 30 years ago on Three Mile Island has virtually shut down the nuclear power industry in America. There, when problems arose at a nuclear power facility, about 2 million people were exposed to radiation equivalent to about one-sixth of a full set of chest X-rays. In the 30 years since Three Mile Island, Japan has built 40 nuclear power plants, and the French have built 56. If the United States produced as much nuclear power as France, there would be 2.2 billion fewer tons of carbon emissions. Nuclear gives us more power with less emissions.
But the same is true of oil shale and clean coal, and the United States has as much of both of these as Saudi Arabia has oil. The technology is there to do these things very cleanly — very much in line with a 21st-century standard of environmental responsibility. Yet in 2007, 81 percent of all leases issued for energy exploration and extraction in the Rockies were challenged in court.
Taking those and other options off the table means three things: Americans lose jobs, pay more for energy and transfer that wealth to foreign powers — often nations that hate us. It’s bad for the environment because energy we don’t produce in the United States to our standards is produced and imported from elsewhere by standards far below our own. China, which is building one coal plant a week, is blanketed in thick smog. On some days, as much as 25 percent of the air pollutants over Los Angeles originated in China. By passing the buck on energy solutions, we aren’t being a friend of the environment.
However, passing the buck on energy solutions seems to be par for the course. Currently, alternative energies are not as cheap as energy sources the industrial world has come to depend on. Conventional thinking in Washington, then, is to tax all current forms of energy to make them as expensive as alternative forms. It is a tax increase on all Americans, some of whom could see utility rates triple if the cap-and-trade bill passes.
You donʼt encourage one of your children to do better by holding back the other. Instead, you create an environment that fosters success for the one less developed. Developing technologies could benefit through tax incentives. The viability of solar power will become real not when fossil fuels are taxed and regulated, but when the government creates tax credits to encourage growth in the industry. Despite the fact that there have been some tax incentives in place for years, only about 1 percent of our energy in the United States comes from the sun. We clearly need to do more to provide incentives for additional solar energy. It doesn’t have to be limited to the federal level. Local governments, particularly those in the Southwest and in places that enjoy year-round sunshine, could act on a local level to encourage increased solar power through tax incentives.
Yet, perhaps the greatest potential lies in imagination and innovation of Americans. The government can tap into it by sponsoring energy contests. Donʼt ask the Department of Energy to develop clean, renewable energy. Thatʼs not what it does. But the Department of Energy can create policies that could lead to tremendous breakthroughs. Set the perimeters — whatever they are — and let the contest begin.
We want clean, renewable energy that meets specific standards, and offer whatever it takes — $1 billion tax free — to whoever can meet the goal. Can you imagine the private funding that would suddenly pour in to the most advanced, cutting-edge innovators in the field of clean, renewable energy? We would have clean, renewable energy, and taxpayers would be paying only for a finished product, not funding research with an ambivalent end.
When you consider the options in oil, clean coal, oil shale, nuclear, wind, biofuels and solar (I didn’t even mention hydrogen, hydro power or natural gas), you begin to realize that the U.S. energy options are tremendous. Millions of jobs are just waiting to be created. Congress only needs to act.
You hear less grumbling today about gas prices than you hear about health care, but our energy reality is no different today than it was a year ago or two years ago — or 10 years ago, for that matter. The time to act is now. We can free America from the grips of foreign powers and put Americans to work. While doing so, weʼll create sustainable economic growth and a cleaner world.
We don’t need to choose between the environment or prosperity. We can have both.
— Clark Vandeventer is a social entrepreneur and is the founder and chairman of The Vandeventer Group. He’s committed to developing practical ideas that make government work and make government work for us. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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» on 10.08.09 @ 09:50 PM
Bravo Mr. Vandeventer. Finally a rational Californian that is not so ideologically aligned that the vision is lost to the dogma. I love the quote, “aligning policy positions with the realities of our time”. That kind of politician is called an educated citizen. Again, bravo….great article. Daniel Petry
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» on 10.09.09 @ 05:11 AM
Bingo! You hit the nail right on the head…. Of course we need use our God-given resources to take care of ourselves, while doing so responsibly for our environment. Has our elected officials become so “political correct” they lost sight of good ole common sense? I am mindful that the true definition of insanity is to keeping doing the same thing and expecting different results. We must not vote for the same people nationally and locally that have allowed our country to be so dependent on other countries - while not tapping into our own resources and ingenuity.
Marlene Minnis
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» on 10.09.09 @ 07:41 AM
What a great article…the one thing that America needs most is not healthcare but jobs…which can be created by bringing back our energy supply to America…One thing that I didn’t see Mr. Vandeventer mention is that the California coast the oil and tar on the beaches is not from the oil rigs but rather from the seepage of the oil reserves. (There would be less oil and tar on our beaches) IF we allow the oil company’s to drill there are ways of doing that without permanent platforms that would in my opinion take away from the view, BUT I’m willing to see a few more platforms to lower the cost of gas, WHILE we search and develop more environmentally friendly solutions. It CAN BE DONE YES IT CAN…and this will actually do something about the problem…If your wondering I’m not republican or a democrat…just an American who want to see my daughter enjoy the beautiful environment that we live in and not have to pay an arm and a leg to get there
I’m just sayin
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» on 10.09.09 @ 08:01 AM
The opposition of Das Williams and Lois Capps to domestic energy production is not truly motivated by environmental concerns. They realize that cheap energy allows Americans to enjoy a bourgeois middle class lifestyle with single-family homes and automobiles. The real goal of killing energy production and jobs, while massively increasing immigration of the unskilled and uneducated, is to turn California into a socialist multicultural playground for their amusement.
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» on 10.09.09 @ 08:43 AM
One of the most over looked resources we have is geothermal. It’s true that this particular resource is not portable like hydrocarbon fuels. However, unlike wind, solar and tidal sources, it is available all the time, like nuclear. With the push to develop our local hydrocarbon resources we will continue to develop better ways of drilling deeper and deeper wells. This technology (which the US is the world leader in now) can easily be transferred to geothermal. Imagine a source of heat energy that is nearly limitless. Once this source is exploited it can be used to actually increase hydrocarbon sources for transportation fuels, a win win for our country. Then, of course we can start exporting our drilling /production technology and right about the same time those OPEC countries are running dry. Hmmm, now wouldn’t that be nice!
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» on 10.09.09 @ 09:43 AM
We must move away from the regressive and antiquated “realities of our time” and choose clean energy sources that are renewable, sustainable and that people may actually want in their own “bourgeois middle class” backyards. That would be both American and democratic. Please lets move away from dirty oil, coal and nuclear. The superior job creator would be in the development new energy sources.
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» on 10.09.09 @ 09:44 AM
Nice to see some common sense. Don’t forget the contributions of Pedro Nava, Doreen Farr, to selfishly hoarding our resources for political purposes. Please run for office Mr. Vandeventer.
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» on 10.09.09 @ 10:13 AM
Mr. McDermott never ceases to amaze me. My article states that oil is not the answer of the 21st Century and I name several ways the government can create an environment that allows us to transition to clean, renewable energy sources that are domestically produced. You know, I have to say I agree with almost everything in his post. We want clean, cheap energy that we’re comfortable having in our own backyards!
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» on 10.09.09 @ 10:37 AM
“Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As a result of both storms, 124 spills were reported with
a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products, of which about 13,200
barrels were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 4,500 barrels were
refined products from platforms and rigs.”
http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/581/44814183_MMS_Katrina_Rita_PL_Final Report Rev1.pdf
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» on 10.09.09 @ 01:44 PM
Vandeventer straddles a line between bright and glib. But that straddle can’t ignore
an unpleasant reality that increases every day.
IF you agree with 95% of the world’s scientists who have examined “climate change”
issues, and expressed a public position based on their actual research, you will see
that increasing extraction or use of carbon-based fuels like oil & gas is suicide for
our children and grandchildren.
We should be using LESS, not using more, or using what’s there faster.
Vandeventer is right that there’s lots of free-market money to be made trying to meld national solutions that take into account both “energy indpendence” and
“climate change.”
It’s just that more oil & gas ain’t it.
Greater energy and fuel efficiencies for all forms of transportation will be huge.
Greater energy efficiency for heating, cooling, ventilating all structures, business
or residential, will be huge.
These two mega-categories alone account for almost two-thirds of American annual
energy consumption. Reduce them by improved technology and system retrofits,
and the private sector makes oodles of bucks, and reduces the target America must
hit to become energy independent dramatically.
Doing these things should not reduce anyone’s standard of living, or kill free market
systems.
So why do “conservatives” find it so darned hard to support actually “conserving”
anything - oil, gas, electricity, water, timber, fisheries?
If Vandeventer can bring together entrepeneurs who will walk their talk on energy
independence, and do it by creating new opportunities in transportation and
building efficiency, we will be very close to meeting our twin goals.
But if this “dialogue” he proposes again ends up at a default position of More Oil &
Gas, RIght Now!, then his summit be DOA. The solutions for our generation, and
those that follow, must put long-term climate change impacts near the top of any
public policy or private investment list.
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» on 10.09.09 @ 02:30 PM
Publius, my proposal is not that we use more oil. I state that oil is not the energy of the 21st Century. I suggest that rather than importing oil from foreign sources that we use more of our own while we transition to cleaner, more renewable sources of energy.
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» on 10.09.09 @ 02:46 PM
Global warming allegedly caused by CO2 is the primary argument currently against the use of oil But Global warming is the scientific hoax of the 21st century. It is accepted because it is useful for those wish to control others’ lives and to reduce personal mobility and choice. The basic temperature data is increasingly coming under scrutiny by real scientists. Just one example from
http://www.financialpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=2056988&p=3
“Only by playing with data can scientists come up with the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph of global warming”
“I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent coauthors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent. The surface temperature data is a contaminated mess with a significant warm bias, and as I have detailed elsewhere the IPCC fabricated evidence in its 2007 report to cover up the problem. Climate models are in gross disagreement with observations, and the discrepancy is growing with each passing year. The often-hyped claim that the modern climate has departed from natural variability depended on flawed statistical methods and low-quality data.”
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» on 10.09.09 @ 05:29 PM
Good point b_reynaldo. Aside from the absurdity of Al Gore’s new religion, is the complete ignorance of the left when it comes to hydrocarbon use, population demographics supported by that use and what would happen if hydrocarbons were not available to use. The nauseating naiveté of the anti oil folks is only eclipsed by their total lack of understanding that they would cease to exist without oil. Everything around you is a result of cheap oil. Once you start down the road to more expensive energy that is way more scarce your life (not Al Gore’s or George Soros) becomes a struggle for mere survival. I dare say most of those protesting hydrocarbon use and supporting the world starving policies of Al’s religion wouldn’t survive 5 days in a hydrocarbon free world. That world would not support the 2 billion inhabitants of the industrialized world and would quickly starve to death or erupt into a global war of nuclear proportions. Need a good visual example? Forget it. It doesn’t exist and you don’t want it to.
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» on 10.09.09 @ 10:35 PM
Clark Vandeventer is venting about me? The author of a very lengthy opinion that has many highly debatable postulates and when I post a few sentences you are amazaed? I just don’t think we should waste any more time building thousands of 3 billion dollar oil rigs or hundreds of 75 billion dollar nuclear power plants. There is no such thing a “clean coal.” Those expenditures would not be “conservative” and are very wasteful and likely drain financial resources that could stifle any real new energy policy choices. I do doubt your sincerity because you are a political operative. Your style is not of bringing people together but one that typically divides. Conservatives of today are “regressive” and my lifetime’s experience will likely blame the lack of progress towards energy independence on the conservative regressive Republican party till the day I die. I consider it my job to make sure that everyone that comes after me knows the dangers of regressive “conservatives.” If you weren’t looking to pick a fight perhaps you wouldn’t have started off denigrating politicians that I think have a better grip on policies than you do. So lets just put the blame of regressive policies starting in the Ronald Reagan White House. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/white-house-solar-panels_n_160575.html
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» on 10.10.09 @ 06:25 AM
So according to Mr. McDermott, we shouldn’t waste billions on nuclear power. France generates 80% of its electricity using nuclear plants, and I thought France was the model we’re supposed to follow on everything from high speed trains to health care.
Both Democrats and Republicans can share the blame for our high dependency on foreign oil. But Democrats have also opposed solar/wind power. Senator Feinstein stopped a solar power plant in the Mojave, and the Kennedy family helped stall the Cape Wind project because the offshore turbines would have been slightly visible from their Hyannisport compound on a clear day.
Republicans have certainly opposed high-speed rail and mass transit in general, but it is Progressive Democrats who have slowed development of metrorail in the LA area (read about the Bus Rider’s union.) Some Progresives made the stunning claim that the Metrorail system was “transit racism”.
Resistance to real development of energy resources is due in part to the Progresives’ desire to control people’s behavior and force those racist suburban whites into rich multiculural urban slums (I mean villages.) The Republicans’ blind faith in the private sector to come up with new solutions to energy and transportation needs is equally to blame.
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» on 10.10.09 @ 10:47 PM
b_reynaldo; Yes I do not want to emulate the tiny little country of France and it’s nuclear model because 1.) the U.S.A would need hundreds of plants and subsidizing the costs would divert funds necessary to develop sustainable resources. 2.) The world would need 17,000 + nuclear plants if following the same model. 3.) Uranium supplies would be exhausted in just several years. 4.) Nobody wants them in their backyard 5.) No one wants the spent fuel (recycled or not) in their backyards either.
The Kennedy delay is as you say a “delay.” I am also aware of Senator Feinsteins’s intervention. Delays are part of the environmental review process that flushes out problems and mitigative responses. But try putting a nuclear power plant anywhere if you want to see delays. I am also very well aware of crossdressing democrats and republicans assuming each other’s roles in social and racist tendencies. It is my observation that while democrats can go along with these negative tendencies it is the leadership and the talking heads on the conservative side that instigate the bad behaviors. I don’t think the shared blame is anywhere near equal.
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» on 10.11.09 @ 06:37 PM
Yep Donny you liberals can find a million excuses for getting in the way, but it still boils down to just getting in the way. It took us 8 years to put a man on the moon and we had to develop the technology from scratch, now NASA says it will take 20 and we have technology an order of magnitude better, plus we’ve done already. So why would it take so long to do it again? Because of obstructionist like you. The whole left in this country revels in getting in the way, it is their dream to show their ultimate achievement, stopping achievers. There is nothing wrong with nukes that we can’t fix, except the obstructionist nay sayers. Sometimes, you people really make me sick. Find something useful to do that doesn’t involve stopping other people from doing useful stuff will ya?
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» on 10.13.09 @ 01:57 PM
AN50; So who killed the electric bus? Talk about getting in the way.
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» on 10.13.09 @ 03:07 PM
McDermott, nuclear is the one relatively clean energy source that has a prayer of fulfilling our needs in any large way. France has used it for decades without incident. It might be beneficial to your credibility if you weren’t prone to eliminate every possible realistic option in your vision of the future.
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» on 10.13.09 @ 03:50 PM
That’s right Donny; collusion by big corporations to kill something good for their own profit is a good example of mucking things up. But how does that justify getting in the way of doing something good even if done by a big company? Funny how when someone calls you guys on your ideology you just point to bad behavior from your opponents. Two wrongs don’t make a right Don and most of us conservatives are very willing to go after our own when they misbehave. You guys on the left ought to try that for a change. You can start with the guy you got sitting in the White House.
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» on 10.13.09 @ 07:55 PM
I think that McDermott’s vision of the future is actually a longing for the good old days of the 1950’s. He obviously lacks any sense of physics, thermodynamics, or economics or he would understand that the “sun/wind/waves” energy mantra, while possible on a very small scale today, doesn’t do anything to solve the need for mobile energy, e.g. for cars, trucks, airplanes, or for large scale energy needs. Research should continue, but let’s wait until we have proof of large scale availability of power from these sources before eliminating everything else.
BTW, McDermott, most engineers and physicists would consider the French use of nuclear power for the past howevermanydecades as proof that it is scalable to larger countries - but, then, that’s scientific reasoning. And don’t be so quick to claim knowledge that “no one” or “every one” happens to agree any or all of your views.
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