WIth burgeoning oil prices the demand for other carbon based resources has flown into full swing. Just yesterday there was an article on the Times website that talked about the revival of a once dead Japanese coal mining town as a result of an increasing demand for coal, due to rising oil prices. The article was heartwarming and talked about the beauty of a once dead industry coming back to life if only for a few last gasps. What's particularly disconcerting about this image is that it talks of revivals of gasping old technologies, it talks of the beauty of stasis, trying to make sure nobody has to change their living to adapt to a modern world. No, I don't think we should stop using our best sources of energy, but I do think the time has come to stop groveling over the paychecks of workers that refuse to change their livelihood and want to be protected as a result; if we're not careful we'll have the 70's Unions all over again that exploited their power to deplete the pockets of industry, effectively forcing companies to move over seas where there are actually employable people. To be sure, not everyone working was involved in the scams; it's more a case of a few ruining it for many.
Which brings me to my next point with regards to a certain pipeline project that is being born on the North Slope of Canada and calls for, according to the Times, a 500 million dollar subsidy to TransCanada (here). This subsidy is designed to jump start the project that, according the pushers of it, will stimulate and stabilize the American economy with jobs. If anyone reading this was around during the New Deal you might think about the huge Public Engineering projects designed to stimulate the economy during FDR's reign: not a permanent, stabilizing solution, not even that long-term as was discovered after enormous amounts of government deficit financing went into the system that, in the future, would provide desert carpets of lush green for anyone willing to pay to play, golf that is.
But it's difficult to argue with the fact that those public works projects provided jobs for many unemployed Americans. That's where this situation in Northern Canada is different. Turns out, even according to the Times that BP and ConocoPhillips-the two companies competing with TransCanada on this matter-have said they already plan to build a pipeline and invest 600 million dollars of their own money to do it without subsidies. This means they will be forced to respond to the market (i.e. the consumer-YOU) and provide gas at rates that people will purchase it, because without doing this they would be making a negative investment. That's not something either of these companies wishes to do, because staying in business is the assumed goal of having a business.
Right now the future of automobile motion looks like a hydrogen fuel cell which depends on a supply of natural gas for re-fueling, so the question becomes do you want to give the government money to invest (keep in mind that they would have gone out of business long ago) or do you want to save that money to buy the gas that is in the interest of BP and ConocoPhillips to supply as dictated by the market demand?
Before you answer that question you might want to know that it seems out of your hands because of the purchasing power we put in the hands of our leaders, according to the governer of Alaska, “We don’t have time to mess around. It is time to get the project built and not just keep guessing what the oil producers want from the state.”
I think it's time they start asking the people that pay their salaries (you, and me) what they want from the state.
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