How Green Is My Energy?
I like Oregon. Great place. It’s green. It’s wet. My friend from Washington says, “so are the people.”
Wait: Some of my best friends are Oregonians! They aren’t green. They’re only wet when they forget their umbrellas.
It’s Oregon’s politicians who seem a little too green, as in innocent of worldy complexity; and a little too wet, as in “wet behind the ears.” Oregon’s governor is pushing for his state to meet 25 percent of its energy needs using alternative energy by 2025.
On the face of this, it doesn’t sound bad. As I was told by my high school counselor, “you gotta have goals.” But there are goals and there is fantasy. Should the governor promote that 25 percent of all state reading be science fiction?
Actually, Oregon has quite a lot of alternative energy now. And I’m not talking about those anarchists who live in trees near Eugene. Alternative, yes; energetic, maybe. But they don’t produce much.
Riazul Islam, a researcher at the Cascade Policy Institute, notes that Oregon places sixth in the nation for alternative energy. They’ve got windmills. They’ve got methane digesters. But these certainly aren’t competitive.
The average unit of wind energy costs 12 cents per kilowat hour, says Islam. Solar energy? More than twice that. The average energy cost produced by non-alternative means is 6.5 cents per killowatt hour.
The upshot of reaching the governor’s goal? Increased costs, poorer Oregonians.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
