How to Fix the U.S. Economy? Stop Tinkering With It!

Richard W. Rahm's column in the Washington Times nails it. From creating too much easy credit to creating artificial scarcities of important commodities to over-regulation, government meddling gets it wrong all too often. It's a credit to American ingenuity and entrepreneurship that this country creates so many small businesses each year despite all of the obstacles that continue to be placed in the way.

Are there any candidates running from either major party who understand this? Doesn't seem that way, although McCain promised that he would work to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

The great Instapundit offers a story about the promise of another type of heavenly light that may bring hope to mankind:

In September, American entrepreneur Kevin Reed proposed at the 58th International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, that Palau's uninhabited Helen Island would be an ideal spot for a small demonstration project, a 260-foot-diameter "rectifying antenna," or rectenna, to take in 1 megawatt of power transmitted earthward by a satellite orbiting 300 miles above Earth.

That's enough electricity to power 1,000 homes, but on that empty island the project would "be intended to show its safety for everywhere else," Reed said in a telephone interview from California.

"The climate change implications are pretty clear. You can get basically unlimited carbon-free power from this," said Mark Hopkins, senior vice president of the National Space Society in Washington. . . . Some seem to hear the call. The European Space Agency has scheduled a conference on space-based solar power for next Feb. 29. Space Island Group, another entrepreneurial U.S. endeavor, reports "very positive" discussions with a European utility and the Indian government about buying future power from satellite systems.

I'm sure that Jerry Pournelle will be pleased. He's been an advocate of solar power from stationary satellites for years.

In "Against the grain: Some scientists deny global warming exists," Astrophysicist Nir Shariv describes his passage from man-made climate change believer to his present opinion. He has recanted: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. "In fact, there is much more than meets the eye."

The article continues: Even doubling the amount of CO2 by 2100, for example, "will not dramatically increase the global temperature," Dr. Shaviv states. Put another way: "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant."

Two interesting posts on energy policy today. Iain Murray in The Examiner asks, "What will we do when America's lights go out?"

Tom Evslin's excellent Fractals of Change blog suggests that France (France?!) may have a workable policy idea to use trade and taxation to ensure that countries that adopt carbon sequestration and similar measures to reduce emissions are not at a disadvantage to countries that do not.

An excerpt from Iain's article: "Soon after the widespread blackouts of 2003, the Electric Reliability Organization was etablished, and it recently issued its first report. That report makes for grim reading because the nation’s electric power infrastructure is on the brink of collapse."

And: "The ERO projects that U.S. demand will increase by 141,000 megawatts (MW) over the next 10 years. Supply, however, will increase by only 57,000 MW, and that assumes that all currently proposed new facilities are approved and built."

If the Democrats are serious about responsible environmental policy, they should encourage investment in practical solutions that reduce emissions while increasing our electrical supply in order to enable the continued growth and prosperity of the economy. More use of safe, modern nuclear power plants and innovative sequestration approaches like the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in North Dakota are available, economically viable solutions today.

Here's more on the Great Plains Synfuels Plant:

"At the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, North Dakota, some 13,000 tonnes per day of carbon dioxide gas is captured and 5000 t of this is piped 320 km into Canada for enhanced oil recovery. This Weyburn oilfield sequesters about 85 cubic metres of carbon dioxide per barrel of oil produced, a total of 19 million tonnes over the project's 20 year life. The first phase of its operation has been judged a success."