Why is the Left so in love with energy conservation?
Two closely related reasons. First, if I waste energy (though I have paid for it with my own honestly earned money), I waste your energy, society's energy, the collective's energy; for "energy belongs to all of us."
Second, this allegedly communal property needs bigger government to legislate, decree and regulate. Energy conservation thus satisfies the leftists most passionate craving: to have unbridled power over others while wearing the halo of morality.
The Alliance for Conserving Energy, which lobbies for government projects and publishes the ways of acquiring some of the resulting funds, has now been joined by another Washington outfit called "American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy." Energy Efficiency in Buildings, their first publication, is the same old staff. Among barriers to improved energy efficiency, it reports, is the tendency of households to pay much more attention to their fuel bills in dollars than to energy consumption. How to overcome these barriers, say the authors, will be shown in Chapters 9 and 10. Their titles: "Government Programs" and "Utility Programs."
It was, of course, the high price of energy, especially the rise in the late 70s, that enforced rigorous energy conservation
¾a tribute to the price mechanism that acts when necessary and relaxes when the need passes. But it is the coercive energy-starvers who want the credit and are looking for more ways to decree efficiency. "Physicist" Lovins, patron saint of this crowd, is particularly fond of pointing to electric motors. But industrial motors already run at efficiencies above 90% -- some of them in the high 90s¾and have done so long before St. Amory was canonized. On the other hand, what difference does it make if an electric toothbrush runs at 99% or 1% efficiency? For one thing, I have a right to spend my money unwisely; for another, a 99% efficient toothbrush will save me a nickel every two years (and conserve one crummy kilowatt-hour for The People).Nevertheless, like a stray dog who leaves a visiting card on your doorstep before he disappears, the 99th Congress left behind a law requiring home appliances to reach certain efficiencies
¾not just labels so that you know what you are buying, but full-fledged prohibitions that forbid the manufacture of appliances beyond the limits established by the Wise Wizards of Washington. For their good work, they voted themselves an annual increase of $12,000 to bring their starvation wages up to $88,500.Would you rather spend your money on a freezer that consumes a little more power, but has other properties that appeal to you? Then you are stupid; and the decision Will be made for you by smart men like Senators Byrd, Dole and Metzenbaum.
On the other hand, if you are frugal and bursting with social responsibility, you will have to do as they tell you anyway.
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Vol. 14, No. 7
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 14, No. 7 Date: November 30, 2004 08:46 AM Title: Commissar Cuomo
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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