Charlie Rose talks with co-founder and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, Amory Lovins, about renewable energy and energy policy. I don’t completely buy Lovins’s arguments against nuclear energy (topic for a separate post after more thought), but urge you to pay attention to Rose’s on-point questions and Lovins’s eloquent and far-sighted answers. We cannot afford to be under-informed on this critical aspect of our future.
In my opinion, neither presidential candidate or leading political party really appreciates what a sound American energy policy entails. Therefore, among other great insights, this is the single most important exchange in the interview:
Charlie Rose: “What would you like to see the next president say in his inaugural address and what would you like to see him do in his first 100 days?”
Amory Lovins: “… I would like to see the president do something very trans-ideological, cutting across party lines and perceptions in both political camps of what ought to be done. I don’t think very many progressive politicians understand that what we most need in energy policy is a dose of conservative economic principles, that is we ought to let always to save or produce energy, compete fairly at honest prices regardless of which kind they are – savings or supply, what technology they use, where they are, how big they are or who owns them. Let’s see who’s not in favor of that. Who’s not in favor of that will be all the free marketeers in outward appearance, but actually they are corporate socialists in free-marketeers’ clothing. It is very curious to me that many who profess to be political conservatives are the biggest subsidizers of their favorite technologies and the most opposed to real competition. Conversely, many liberals try to subsidize their favorite technologies as much as the other technologies are getting subsidized. Why are we paying so much of our energy bill through our tax bill? Let’s pay it at the pump or at the meter so we know how much it costs. Then we’ll know how much is enough.”
