“In DOE’s ostensible energy efficiency zealousness, it assumes ‘command and control’ of a portion of the economy. Such political markets inevitably displace free markets, as vested interests organize and mobilize resources to protect and enlarge their abilities, against less powerful stakeholders, to determine regulatory outcomes.”
In 1999, “Is DOE Leading Us Astray?” was published in a business trade journal. That journal no longer exists, but my article’s message can be revisited to assess how the current situation.
The original is indented and in red, followed by my responses: [1]
…When you do the math, properly accounting for the delivered efficiency of the two energy forms, one sees that electricity is delivered at an overall efficiency of 27% and natural gas is delivered at an overall efficiency of 91% (using the above illustrative EFs).
“Their ‘all of the above’ debate wasn’t all of the above…. It was a propaganda stage for a ‘clean energy’ pact between EEI and NRDC for announcing their joint indoctrination campaign aimed at increasing market share of electricity at the expense of natural gas.”
“What this ‘powerful’ cabal intends to do is to monopolize energy by electricity under the guise of environmental necessity.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), the national trade association representing state public service commissioners who regulate investor-owned utilities, was recently the site of a political war against natural gas. [1] On the last day of NARUC’s annual Winter Policy Summit (February 14), E&E News reported (Nation’s regulators get down to business at winter meeting): [2]
…The final NARUC session on Wednesday will feature a debate of sorts between Phil Moeller, executive vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, and Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, on an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy.
“We have an politicized “all the above” electricity policy to the detriment of natural gas direct use. If energy diversity for electrical generation is desirable, then alternatives to electricity be also be desirable. This is especially true when considering diversity of energy delivery mechanisms (pipelines and wires) and the fact that customer outages are predominantly due to downed wires, not generation outages.”
Last month, US Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry held a hearing before the House Energy & Commerce Committee. None examined the very important issue of over-electrification.where public policies discriminate against direct-use natural gas.
The concept of an “all-the-above energy policy” was a recurring theme of Secretary Perry’s hearing with the House Energy & Commerce Committee on Thursday October 12 [1] This is a popular fiction; like another of Secretary Perry’s reoccurring themes that energy is not a free market.…