The week before she was chosen as John McCain's running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin was interviewed by CNBC's Maria Bartiromo about drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve and elsewhere. In measured, lucid tones, Palin produced a veritable tsunami of non sequiturs, misleading claims, and outright falsehoods. One would need to go through second-by-second to fact check all the screamers -- there's the "20 percent of America's domestic energy" bit, the "drilling in the Refuge would be confined to 2,000 acres" [PDF] shtick, and many more to boot -- but I'm not going to put myself through that.
I just want to draw attention to Palin's comments about renewables, which perfectly capture conservative conventional wisdom. I'll transcribe her full comment below, but this is the key bit: "It's naïve to think that we can go right to renewables and think that that's ever going to work for our nation -- today, at this time." You can see that she catches herself at the end. She said "ever going to work," which was probably a case of excess honesty, so she hedges with "today, at this time."
But listen to her full comments, listen to her tone. It's clear she thinks renewables are basically a charity project to satisfy liberals; she won't oppose them, no one ever will, but she thinks oil and gas are energy for the foreseeable future. How long? Well, the new drilling and pipelines she's pushing for won't be delivering energy for at least 10 years, probably longer. So when she says we're going to be in a "transition period" to renewables for "quite some time," she's talking about 50, 75, 100 years.
Sure, Palin "knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America," but does she know anything about wind? Concentrated solar? Advanced geothermal? Cogeneration? Smart grids? V2G technology? Efficiency?
Regardless, the public should know: Most Republicans think renewables are a sideshow. (And I'd bet a fair number of Dems agree.) That's the key argument greens need to win; everything else flows from it.
Palin's full comment (about 4:30 in) and video below:
People need to be realistic, also -- and this is also what kinda scares me about Biden and Obama -- it seems to be almost a naïve notion of theirs that we can just automatically jump right into a renewable supply of energy to feed hungry markets across our nation when these renewables are not yet proven to be economic nor reliable. We're gonna be in a transition period for quite some time where you have to be reliant on conventional sources of energy as we're workin' on the renewables. We certainly have to head in that direction also, but it's gotta be doin' everything, everything that we can to allow the domestics supplies, renewable and non-renewable, to be tapped, solutions plugged in from both those ends, and not just skip the oil and the gas developments, and the coal development also, that we have to have as part of a comprehensive plan. It's naïve to think that we can go right to renewables and think that that's ever going to work for our nation, today, at this time.
‘Heretic’ battles straw man
Palin’s book spreads falsehoods about clean energy legislation
Comments
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Sean Casten Posted 5:07 am
22 Sep 2008
I'm not excusing Palin by any means - but it bears noting that the consistent message from the renewable community is that their technologies are not economic. We can learn a lesson or two from the coal/nuke lobby who says, in effect "Our nation needs the cheap energy that we can provide, and it is therefore a national priority to subsidize us."
My personal preference is simply to articulate the need for a level playing field so that all technologies can compete on their respective merits. But whatever path we take, we ought to at least keep in mind that if one is not among our top-100 national energy experts - as Palin most certainly is not, CV notwithstanding - then the messaging from the green community ought to bear some culpability for convincing here that these technologies aren't ready for (economic) prime time.
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GlobalWarmingInc Posted 5:21 am
22 Sep 2008
The global warming zealots are so quick to dissect any and every word spoken by Palin... I'd like to see the same dissection of Obama's comments.
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Bob Wallace Posted 5:38 am
22 Sep 2008
Look around the room you are sitting in. See those plug-in spots along the walls? That's the end point of a vast electric generation and distribution system.
Is the system robust to support a 100% move to electric personal transportation at this moment?
Nope, but upgrades to the system are being made and should have no trouble keeping up with the introduction of PHEVs and BEVs.
The switchover will be gradual. But I'd be surprised if many of us are driving an ICE vehicle 20 years from now.
Look up the percentage of miles driven by cars greater than 15 years old. That's likely to be close to the pure-ICE mileage two decades into the future.
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katakanadian Posted 5:41 am
22 Sep 2008
You can't just say, "hey, everthing's going to be electric from now on -your car is now obsolete."
Hmmm. Weren't we all just told that we would have to buy new TV sets because our old ones will be virtually obselete in the mandatory switch to digital? Oil is running out not the capability to broadcast analog signals. We need a mandatory end to gas guzzlers.
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Duggles Posted 5:55 am
22 Sep 2008
Also, I don't think we've seen the last of the ICE-only car. Look at Toyota; they're not ramping up production of the Prius this year, even though they sell every one they make. My personal opinion, not necessarily correct, is that the profit margin isn't there for them to increase production. Why make more hybrids when it's more lucrative to make ICE-onlys?
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GlobalWarmingInc Posted 6:32 am
22 Sep 2008
And, "oil is running out" ??? Whaaaat?! There is more oil in just the Rocky Mountains than all of the Middle East combined. Plus it's sweet crude (the good stuff -less refining needed) compared to the Middle East's sour crude -which needs more refining.
We will NEVER run out of oil -we will only run out if idiots vote not to expand where we can drill. Then we can import 100% of our oil -now that's smart! The US is the ONLY developed country on Earth that has laws against drilling on it's own coast. Look up how European coastal countries do it -and harmoniously with the environment too. How backwards are we?! China is going to get our OCS oil if we don't. They're already trying.
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Pangolin Posted 7:01 am
22 Sep 2008
Calling that stuff oil is a flat lie.
Put the Carbon Back
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