[Paul's] campaign Web site made it clear where Paul stood on using government funding and regulation to alter the U.S. energy supply.This statement is right up there with "The government should keep its hands off my Medicare." iPods can in fact directly trace their existence to government investments in innovation.
"Any energy source that really meets the needs of the American consumer would not need the government to subsidize it," the Web site said, arguing that such subsidies distort the free market for energy and encourage companies to advance their interests through lobbying instead of innovation. "Just as we don't subsidize laptops and iPods, we should not be subsidizing solar and wind power."
W. Patrick McCay describes this relationship in a paper titled, "From Lab to iPod: A Story of Discovery and Commercialization in the Post–Cold War Era." From the abstract:
The 1988 discovery, made simultaneously in two European laboratories, of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) became the basis for the Nobel prize in physics two decades later. Companies like IBM rapidly commercialized the discovery, which paved the way for major advances in data storage commonly seen in computers and portable music players. GMR also helped catalyze a new field of research known as “spintronics” and provided a rationale for a major global investment in nanotechnology. This article examines the process through which a basic physics discovery was made and then commercialized. In this narrative, military agencies and commercial firms acting as “institutional entrepreneurs” fostered the growth of spintronics (and nanotechnology) in the post-Cold War environment.You can thank DOD for your iPod, iPhone and iPad. And US government subsidies and partnerships with the private sector, otherwise known as investments in innovation, played a central role. This doesn't mean that every subsidies is worthwhile, but it does suggest, contrary to Paul's assertions that some in fact are. Energy is one such area where government investment in innovation makes sense.
Forget about Paul's views on climate science, the fact that he does not appear to know how government works is much more troubling. More on this next week.
53 comments:
Not nearly as troubling as the fact that President Obama and most of the Democrats in Congress have no clue how the economy works. As long as they keep trying to hammer their square peg into the multi-dimensional hole that is a free vibrant economy, we aren't going to have the resources to do much of anything new in energy -- privately or publicly.
Anyone truly interested in having a society capable of addressing serious problems should shudder every time those idiots open their mouths.
Roger, if you want to focus on politicians who are screwing up our chances of addressing your concerns, why not focus on the ones who have already done enormous damage and indicated an intent to do even more?
His chosen reasoning is flaky, but he is right about solar and wind power.
In the rush to tackle the 'phantom menace' of CO2, governments are picking expensive losers, not winners.
Remember, you're iPod, iPhone and iPad weren't developed to tackle 'global warming.'
I read Rand Paul's comments as being primarily directed toward such things as subsidizing the price of ethanol as opposed to subsidizing research. Maybe I'm just optimistically reading in.
Roger,
There is a HUGE difference between subsidizing R&D and subsidizing production. R&D subsidisies can often achieve high ROIs because the government can afford to take risks that the private sector cannot.
Production subsidies (anything that is paid per unit produced) are unsustainable and can actually harm innovation by encouraging the deployment of uneconomic technology. I believe Paul is talking about production subsidies.
Everything you have said so far has made me believe that you actually agree with Rand Paul on this point (i.e. you call for finding energy sources that are cheaper than fossil fuels which implies no production subsidies).
Are you saying you support production subsidies? If so that radically alters my opinion of your strategy. They are are not a viable policy as far as I am concerned.
We can go back to Samuel Morse and "What hath God wrought?" for examples of Government suport of new technologies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_hath_God_wrought
From the railroads, which recieved huge land allotments for laying track to Morse code to the Wright Brothers seeking governemnt contracts to help with the development of airplanes, the US governemtn ahs clearly never been a completely hands-off relationship with innovation and capital.
It is the balance that is the trick.
Libertarians hope things will go along in a nice anarch-capitlist scenario with no central government. The only example of that in the modern era is Somalia. I see no American libertarians in a hurry to study how to implement Somalia over here.
Two points. One is that there's a difference in funding basic research via grants to universities and labs, and artificially making existing solar and wind power technologies "competitive" via government subsidy, and it's pretty clear from context that the latter is what Paul is talking about here. Would Paul support the former? I don't know, but that's not what he was talking about.
The second is that we actually don't know how things would have turned out without government subsidy, but the odds are that this particular breakthrough would have been made soon anyways. When you look at the history of scientific discovery, it's littered with examples where two or more teams made the same discovery at about the same time. Why? Because all the necessary predecessor steps to the discovery had been made.
So the analogy you used really doesn't work here. Now, on the other hand, lets say that the technology developed by IBM from the GMR research worked as well as it did, but it turned out to be too expensive to manufacture to be used in consumer hardware, and the goverment had decided that everyone having portable computing devices was a public good so it covered half the cost of the devices. That would be analogous to what Paul is talking about here, and that's not happening with iPods.
I've said it before and I'll say it again the Tea Party are just as nutty as those eco-loons. It highlights how far apart, crazy and partisan the debate on energy has become.
"Energy is one such area where government investment in innovation makes sense."
When and if a break-thru in Energy occurs, we may very well end up thanking DOD for that as well.
http://www.dod.gov/ddre/doc/DoD_Energy_Security_Task_Force.pdf
Perhaps the key word in your quoted summary is "rapidly".
The role of government funding perhaps is best in discovery and fundamental understanding.
In GMR, government didn't pick the winner, industry saw the value and ran with it.
What we have in current energy policy is huge government expenditures subsidizing unprofitable projects in the hopes that they will magically work in 20 years. Worse, we have people in government trying to figure out how to make the projects profitable by making the traditional alternatives too expensive.
If government wants to fund basic research, that's fine. If the military needs expensive technology to defend the country, that's fine. But government shouldn't be forcing industry to use technlogies that are inefficient and subsidizing them forever.
Paul has half a point. It is worth recalling that while the basic condensed matter physics underlying GMR was discovered in two state-run institutions (Paris-Sud and Jülich), the implementation was done by IBM.
The problem at the moment is that the US government is funding applied science at the expense of basic research. The area where government sponsorship has been most successful, in other words, is being starved for the benefit of an area where it has been far less so. Companies are far better than academic institutions at figuring out how to do useful things with the basic ideas academic institutions discover.
At my own (state-run) institution, in a physical science department, we can't hire people to do fundamental research. The university wants people who will invent things to enrich the university. In other words, it has gotten itself confused with a private company. And even if we did hire a scientist who wanted to do fundamental research, it is unlikely he/she could get funded.
If you look at where energy research funding is going, it's very much into applied science. But what this field badly needs is an advance in the fundamental science. IMHO, we are at least one fundamental discovery away from building a commercially competitive photovoltaic, for example. We've been tweaking the known technology for a long time, and it's reached an asymptote.
I agree with the comments above that there is a big difference between subsidizing R&D research and subsidizing the production of actual energy sources. At best, it is not clear what Rand Paul is referring to so I don't think your criticism is fair.
Frontiers . . . says: "Libertarians hope things will go along in a nice anarch-capitlist scenario with no central government. The only example of that in the modern era is Somalia. I see no American libertarians in a hurry to study how to implement Somalia over here."
This is a straw man argument. Libertarian recognizes that there is a significant role for government to play in the economy. Libertarians are not anarchists. I think even the most staunch libertarian would be completely satisfied see the role of the federal government trimmed back to the levels contemplated by the founding fathers when they wrote the U.S. Constitution.
I agree with what most have said. Gov should support basic research and maybe prototype development not production.
I'm a big support of LFTR, the green nuclear. But I don't want production support. Just funding for the NRC to licence this (and other) innovative nuclear technologies. Innovative nuclear will not attract public investment unless the regulatory path is clear.
If LFTR is as good as many of us think it is, it will not need production subsidies. It will be cheaper (and vastly cleaner) than coal.
http://energyfromthorium.com/2010/07/11/ending-energy-poverty/
What effect removing subsidies to oil industry would have in reducing the gap between renewable energy and oil energy?
If you cut also renewable this shouldn't change much if subsidies to clean energy are also removed.
BTW did Paul forget that the oil industry also receives subsidies. Is he for cutting them too.
John does make an excellent point about the difference between getting a govt. contract for somehting that works ( Morse code, railroad or Wright borhter fliers) vs. tossing billions in tax payer dollars into a an efort to make something that does not work, work.
Roger,
Thanks very much for this.
If you haven't already, I would suggest that you check out a recent report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), "Economic Doctrines and Climate Change" which very clearly delineates the ideological worldviews that underpin competing ideas regarding energy and climate policy.
http://itif.org/publications/economic-doctrines-and-approaches-climate-change-policy
Rand Paul certainly falls into the "conservative neoclassical" camp, with the mantra that all we need to do is "let the markets work" or "get prices right." With respect to energy policy, according to these folks, that means removing all energy subsidies.
Too bad that, as you rightly point out, that will do little if anything to drive the needed innovation in clean energy technologies.
Sylvain,
What specific subsidies does the oil industry get in the US? Gasoline is taxed at the pump. Where are the subsidies?
Yes, some foreign governments subsidize gasoline for the consumer. But not the US.
If there are subsidies, I agree they should be eliminated. With oil prices near $100/B there is no need for exploration incentives. In fact, we should also auction new gas and oil licences and use the proceeds for cleaner energy R&D.
The government didn't invest in personal music player innovation and product development. What exactly is the analogy?
iPod = ?
Super-efficient solar panels? Super-efficient batteries? But the government didn't set out to build a better personal music player, did it? The analogy is entirely fallacious.
The proper analogy would be if someone came up with a super-efficient electric car battery using basic research that never foresaw its application to transportation.
This is one of your rare stinkers, Roger.
Rand Paul understands how government works. Its just that he doesn't want it too work. Except for a few special cases :-)
If you go far enough back in history, it's all is a product of the industrial revolution. The steam engine is responsible.
However, back then I think there was much less government involvement. A bunch of lone cowboys exploring frontiers of science and engineering did it.
I'm not going to thank the DOD for my iPod. The article is interesting and but it is clear that the key developments had occurred before DARPA got involved, and that the IBM was the heavy lifter in the development of the technology.
McCray says:"While direct causality cannot be assumed, it is reasonable to conclude that the funding Wolf and his colleagues helped make available played a not-insignificant role in fostering the growth of the spintronics research community. "
It seems more reasonable to me that IBM and others would have continued work in this promising field and we would have iPods anyway.
You say "Energy is one such area where government investment in innovation makes sense," and Paul does not understand how government works.
The Federal and state governments have been deeply involved in promoting and discouraging energy technologies since at least the Jimmy Carter administration; with research contracts, subsidies, mandates, regulations.
With policies driven by ideology and political influence, consumers and investors paid dearly for PURPA/SPP/co-gen/"least-cost" planning, etc. The best technology we had for new power production, nuclear, has been stopped dead in its tracts by government policies and regulation.
Now we have mandates for "renewable" power, "clean" power, and specific and increasing requirements for power from mountain and sea breezes (in Maine and other states), all this will be hugely costly and unproductive.
These government subsidies and mandates are again being determined by a "green" ideology and rent-seeking entrepreneurs and Wall Street I-bankers.
If you think that the resources to meet our future energy needs will be better allocated by bureaucrats and legislators rather than market participants, it is is you Dr. Pielke, not Rand Paul, who is naive about government.
It is interesting to me to see all of these comments mythologizing the linear model of innovation, and yet not a single complaint about the $557 billion in government subsidies for fossil fuels.
The question that matters (at least outside the pub and political philosophy classroom) is not "Should government be involved in innovation?"
But rather, "Given the realities of government involvement in innovation, how do we best direct it to public ends?"
The Utopian ideological stuff I can do without.
It is interesting to me to see all of these comments mythologizing the linear model of innovation, and yet not a single complaint about the $557 billion in government subsidies for fossil fuels.
To be fair to Rand Paul, I'd bet dollars to donuts he opposes those too. So do I, FWIW.
My answer to your question is that government should fund fundamental research. Once an application is forseeable, it's an excellent bet an innovative start-up and a couple of far seeing venture capitalists will run with it. But only government (and a few charities) will fund research with no directly apparent application. We need to do blue-sky stuff, and currently we're skimping on that.
In the energy field, that probably means government should get out of wind-power R&D completely. It's very doubtful any new basic science remains to be discovered. Breakthroughs in battery technology, fuel cells and photovoltaics will probably come from research in condensed matter physics and chemistry, but not research directed at batteries or solar power. And I'm generally pessimistic about biofuels, because nature has been doing research in this area for a billion years, and I think what we've got is close to what we'll ever have. But if there is a breakthrough, it will probably come from somebody trying to understand something entirely different.
Roger,
First of all, I think we could use a clarification of exactly what you mean by "innovation" since some have taken it to be limited to basic research, while others include everything up-to-and-including subsidies for production. You kind of leave the question open in your book, also.
Also, I can't speak for Senator-elect Paul's positions on oil subsidies-- I'm "blessed" by having Senators named Boxer and Feinstein to represent my positions in the Senate (not!) so I did not follow the Kentucky race closely. But basic Libertarian philosophy, as I understand it, would oppose subsidies to oil companies. For those interested, "Liberarianism -- for and against" by Duncan and Machan is a good, balanced read.
"Given the realities of government involvement in innovation, how do we best direct it to public ends?"
I don't know that you can. The investment in going to the moon led to various practical technologies, but they didn't come about because NASA thought they would. You just have to choose interesting avenues of research and see where it all lands. And that requires spending a fair amount of money.
I doubt that Rand Paul's attitude is common even among conservatives, but the question is whether the investment in research is possible in the current political climate.
Pielke: "It is interesting to me to see all of these comments mythologizing the linear model of innovation, and yet not a single complaint about the $557 billion in government subsidies for fossil fuels."
The $557 billion is an absurd and dishonest number to bring up in the context of US government energy policies; most of the "government subsidies" are foreign state-owned oil producers (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, etc.) selling oil products to their own citizens at less than world-market prices.
Other "subsidies" are "tax expenditures" meaning energy companies are allowed to, like other corporations, amortize and depreciate development expenses.
I am surprised to see you, Dr. Pielke, use this phony activist statistic; it and like "apples to oranges" comparisons are being used to advocate costly wind and solar policies, and it cannot be used in making a sound energy policy; it is a form of propaganda.
In the US most of the "subsidies" for coal, natural gas, and petroleum liquids are these "tax expenditures." These "tax expenditures" are very unlike the "credits" that wind-power companies get which are effectively direct subsidies.
DOE gives a breakdown of estimated U.S. "subsidies" for each energy source(http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/pdf/chap5.pdf).
For electric production on a $/MWH basis they are:
Coal 0.44
Natural gas and petroleum liquids 0.25
Solar 24.23
Wind 23.37
Note that the Solar and Wind subsidies figures do not, as far as I can tell, include the cost of mandates to buy these "clean" energy sources at prices higher, much higher, than market prices, or the costs that these intermittent energy sources, wind in particular, place on the dispatch and distribution systems. The actual subsides if these costs were to be added in would be much higher for wind and solar.
Pielke: "Given the realities of government involvement in innovation, how do we best direct it to public ends?"
We can start by using honest numbers.
Some source material for fossil fuel, nuclear, and renewables subsidies (see page 23):
http://www.iea.org/weo/docs/G20_Subsidy_Joint_Report.pdf
Renewables get more on a per-energy-unit basis, liquid fossil fuels get the majority of the subsidies on an absolute basis.
I agree with Raven. And, Roger, can you cite any breakthroughs that have resulted from the spending of hundreds of millions of research $$ over the last 40 years by your Gov't-funded neighbor, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory?
The dark secret behind a lot of innovation is sponsorship by the military and the intelligence agencies.
"Utopian ideological stuff I can do without."
I agree, Ron Paul the father basically wants to return to 1776 where the consititution and bill of rights meant that honest, decency and fair play ruled like the light of God over the newly born America, like Christ in the manger.
The truth is of course very, very different as one can easily discover by reading a book. The hero of these paleo conservatives Thomas Jefferson was a scoundrel with a golden tongue and pen.
The Paul family has made their careers out of demanding accountability from the federal reserve, a worthy cause, but it is based on Jefferson's ideological opposition to a central bank.
Conservative idealism is almost always based on mythology rather than history.
Here is some subsidy information from US EIA.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/press296.html
"Coal-based synfuels (refined coal) that are eligible for the alternative fuels tax credit, solar power, and wind power received the highest subsidies per unit of generation, ranging from more than $23 to nearly $30 per megawatthour of generation.
The smallest subsidies on a per unit basis were for coal, natural gas and petroleum liquids, and municipal solid waste, all at less than $0.45 per megawatthour of generation."
Roger do you have any particular thoughts on ARPA-E? Are there other models (e.g. SDTC in Canada) that are better or worse?
Roger,
I suspect you're not seeing a single complaint about $557B in subsidies because no one has a clue what subsidies you are referring to. Cite please?
By the way, did you even read the Rand Paul web site? I did, and I find it hard to reach the conclusion you do based on what is posted there (circa 7:00 pm EST 11/5/2010).
For example, does this line jive with your anit-innovation headline?
"Subsidies take away the incentives for business to innovate and instead give them an incentive to lobby Washington."
Go to the source please, Dr. Pielke.
roger
You said:
"yet not a single complaint about the $557 billion in government subsidies for fossil fuels."
I said:
"If there are subsidies, I agree they should be eliminated. With oil prices near $100/B there is no need for exploration incentives. In fact, we should also auction new gas and oil licences and use the proceeds for cleaner energy R&D."
Where are the $500B oil subsidies?
Maybe everyone would be happy if the Europeans continued the government research and the US companies capitalized on it. Then of course the Chinese manufacture it ha ha!
Nice to hear from some that the only government spending that never gets cut - the military - does actually produce something useful from time to time. Be interesting to see if moving that funding to less bellicose efforts would work even better.
Thanks all for the comments, just a few quick replies:
1. The $557B was discussed here, see the comments as well:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/06/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-557.html
2. I missed it, what did Rand Paul say about fossil fuel subsidies, either US or globally? (And seriously, if he says something about this in the same document, in addition to critiquing wind and solar subsidies, then I'll credit him with at least consistency. If not, well ...)
3. Gov't funded technology breakthrough? Ummmm ... nuclear power? What do I win? ;-)
4. "Innovation" is much more than "basic research" -- and includes many things.
Thanks again, and there will be plenty o9f chances to discuss innovation here, and I am happy for people to have their say/critique/venting ;-)
Roger,
Rand Paul is opposed to virtually all government subsidies.
Im surprised you don't know that.
I'm a big rp jr. fan but this was probably your worst post ever.
Hey, Roger, how about responding to my question about NREL? Expand it to the whole damn Energy Department. Where are the "innovations? Please present a rationale for spending more billions of $$$$ of taxpayer money to fund "science" that is essentially devoted to disproving the laws of thermodynamics??? BTW, did you ever take ANY courses in physics, and most importantly, thermodynamics? If not, maybe you shoud be more careful about your recommendations....
Saying you're going to solve a problem by encouraging innovation is like saying you're going to solve the government deficit problem by "cutting the fat, corruption, and waste." The devil is in the details.
With respect to your example of a government funded technology breakthrough, I don't see that as a good example. Einstein was a patent clerk, not doing government funded research, when he did the innovating. A nuclear power plant is little different from a coal-fired power plant except for the heat source.
This is a straw man argument. Libertarian recognizes that there is a significant role for government to play in the economy.
You may think it is a straw man, but it is not. Just because the idea is loony doesn't mean many libertarians don't believe it wholeheartedly.
I can't speak for Mr Paul, but the New Zealand Libertarianz Party have no time for government in the economy. NO time.
http://www.libertarianz.org.nz/policies/
They don't even want the government to run schools, let alone markets!
"3. Gov't funded technology breakthrough? Ummmm ... nuclear power? What do I win? ;-)"
An off-shoot of the development of weapons in a time of war and subsequent development of power plants for machines to deliver weapons.
Plus, look how successful the implementation in the USA as been.
The amount of money that will be made when a replacement system for production and delivery of electricity to individual customers that is as cost-effective and efficient as the present system is almost un-countable. If such a system could have been already developed and deployed, it would have been. With or without subsidies. Solar is already over 4 decades in the labs. Wind is being found to be marginal. Neither will ever supply base load. Interest in both is based entirely on subsidies.
Gee Roger, maybe you can put together a seminar attended by those elected officials from the liberal-side so they can tutor Rand Paul (and other newbies) as to how the "government works."
Ya know, great liberal thinkers and government officials such as Obama, Queen Pelosi, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Harry Reid, Ron Blagoavich, Eliot Spitzer and Robert Byrd. Dang it all!.....forgot the King of Pork already met his KKK-maker. Hey, instead of Byrd, how about the Senate comedian, Al Franken - that great Democrat who is helping us laugh (govern?) through 10% unemployment?
Gotta name for this seminar that you should sponsor for the Tea Party winners: "Pork, Corruption & Laughs: How To Govern Like Democrats and Prosper."
Personally, I prefer your postings when they avoid the gratuitous partisan snark. Everyone knows you're a brain-dead liberal who would be dumb enough to vote a totally inexperienced, incompetent Democrat into the Oval office. We know this yet grant you a pass based on a condition of your temporary lunacy. But, in the meantime, there's no need to further discredit your creditability and your own good and interesting work with needless partisan idiocy.
Keep to the good and mind-challenging stuff, Roger, and let your heart throbs on The View perform as the liberal imbecile mouthpieces.
No doubt that military-related research pays benefits in civilian life. But that's not the point of Rand Paul's position.
Those military expenditures represent an opportunity cost, and, you can't know that those innovations would never have come about without military research.
Rand Paul is merely stating his economic belief that worthwhile research activities can and will take place in the absence of government expenditures.
In Britain, there is a hidden subsidy (the Renewables Obligation) for renewable energy paid by every consumer which is seems underhand.
This could be replaced by increasing the cost of current voluntary opt in schemes for green energy through electricity suppliers. Anyone who wishes to express class identity can pay the extra and frame their electricity bill on the lounge wall. It's cheaper than an SUV.
***
Households face £769-a-year rise in power bills to 'rewire the nation' for green energy
5th October 2010
A £200billion plan to switch to green energy could cost households an average of £769 a year, it was claimed today.
Industry regulator, Ofgem, said a massive construction plan is needed to build new wind farms, power stations, including nuclear, and a modern national grid.The first stage, a £32billion plan to build new pipelines and pylon networks, has been given the go-ahead.
.....
Picking up the bill: Calculations put the cost of converting Britain to green energy at £769 a year
'Consumers must make their homes more energy efficient, reduce the amount of energy they use and make sure they are paying the lowest possible price for it,' he said.
Analyst at the M&C Energy Group, David Hunter, warned: 'Customers should expect a 60per cent hike in bills over the next decade or so.'
Richard Hall, energy expert at the customer body, Consumer Focus, said: 'While moves to make our energy supply more secure and efficient are essential, the costs involved are huge.
'Ofgem needs to be vigilant so that customers are not asked to write a blank cheque to fund them.
'Energy suppliers and generators will get huge benefits from infrastructure changes and must share in the costs.
'Measures are also needed to protect households at risk of fuel poverty from the disproportionate effects that price rises will have on the poorest consumers.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317600/769-year-rise-power-bills-rewire-nation-green-energy.html#ixzz14ckeGyVc
1) Government subsidies for alternative energy sources only serve to:
A) Subsidize failure.
B) Prevent these alternative energy sources from overcoming their failures and finding their legitimate niche in the market.
Click here for all the rationale any reasonable person needs to understand why government should never get involved (directly OR indirectly) in picking winners and losers in ANY marketplace.
Click here for many, many more examples of the ever destructive Crony Capitalism.
2) Rand Paul has proposed legislation which would require Congress to reduce deficit spending by 20% each year or face a 20% reduction in their own salaries each year they fail to do so. That is the most promising legislative proposal anybody has offered in the last century (or two).
Rand Paul may be THE most promising of the many TEA Party wins in the 2010 elections.
Roger,
Simply repeating a disreputable figure like $557B as a subsidy number does it make it less disreputable.
You disassembled quite a bit of phony numbers in your "Climate Fix". Why do you repeat other people's equally poor numbers here?
Have you analyzed the claims of $557B?
-45-FFaS
Your quibble over the $557B is with IEA, not me. If you'd like to challenge it, please do.
If you want to argue that I have phony numbers in my book, please make the argument using data.
Thanks!
Roger sez (Fri Nov 05, 02:22:00 PM MDT ):
“It is interesting to me to see all of these comments mythologizing the linear model of innovation, and yet not a single complaint about the $557 billion in government subsidies for fossil fuels.”
Roger,
Your own post debunks your straw man assertion -- reread it.
“The question that matters (at least outside the pub and political philosophy classroom) is not ‘Should government be involved in innovation?’
But rather, ‘Given the realities of government involvement in innovation, how do we best direct it to public ends?’
The Utopian ideological stuff I can do without.”
Utopian stuff like abiding by the limitations imposed upon the United States Congress by Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution? Or, is that document too “Utopian” for your tastes?
Subsidies.
More on subsidies and alternative / renewable electricity sources. It's not about government involvement in innovation, it's about the costs of implementation.
from the 'Subsidies' article:
Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee has sponsored legislative language that would instruct FERC to allocate transmission line costs in a way that is "reasonably proportionate to measurable economic and reliability benefits." In other words, no charging rate payers in New Jersey for the costs of a wind farm in Texas based on vague benefits of reduced planetary carbon emissions.
This ties in with Dr Pielke's point that sound policy (or achievable policy) needs to link cost and benefits more directly (in time and space).
Hi Roger,
You write, "You can thank DOD for your iPod, iPhone and iPad."
To support(?) this statement, you cite, "The 1988 discovery, made simultaneously in two European laboratories, of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) became the basis for the Nobel prize in physics two decades later. Companies like IBM rapidly commercialized the discovery, which paved the way for major advances in data storage commonly seen in computers and portable music players."
Why do you think we should "thank DOD" for iPhones and iPads? Isn't giant magnetoresistance actually related to hard drives? Do iPhones and iPads even have hard drives, or do they have flash memory? (In fact, are iPods currently made with hard drives, or do they have flash memory?)
Also, the research on giant magnetoresistance that was cited was conducted in Europe. Are you saying that DOD was funding the research in these European laboratories?
Roger,
Inaccuracies of your assertions aside...
I do not own and do not care to own an iPod, iPhone or an iPad and never will.
May I have my tax money back?
Roger,
That number ahs been repeatedly debunked.
The IEA is not really any more credible in this than any other ideologue in the public square.
I and numerous other posters have shown the fallacies of the claim.
When you analyzed the IPCC mission, you pointed out its severe problems due in no small part to its foundational agenda. It seems clear the IEA is likely suffering from something similar.
Post a Comment