Energy is More Than an Industry – It is the Back Bone of a Nation
December 4th, 2009 |
When we talk about alternative energy initiatives, we often forget exactly what the energy industry is all about. Energy is more than just an industry, as it affects every industry, and every individual. Abundant energy means more efficiency for every man, woman, and child, as well as every small business, medium-size company, and large Corporation. Inexpensive energy also means that our government spends less money, and all these have a compounding effect on our society and civilization.
All too often, we listen to environmentally focused individuals, who want us to move from our coal-fired energy generation plants which provide 60% of all the energy for our country to only clean energy. And lately they’ve come up with the Cap and Trade Plan to tax those fossil fuel energy generation plants for the carbon they emit, and turn around and give that money to research and development projects for alternative energy, and to subsidize the making of clean energy.
But we must understand if we tax 60% of the energy generation plants in the United States and then give that money to other less efficient, and more costly generating plants, all we are going to do is raise the price of energy for everyone. Thus, it affects every single industry, and it will affect them in a negative way. If we raise the cost of everything that we build we will not be a will to compete globally in manufacturing.
If we raise the cost of energy for everyone’s home, then our quality of life and standard of living will go down because people will have less money to spend. When people have less money to spend they will buy less, and when they purchase fewer products, fewer people will have jobs in the retail sector, and fewer products will have to be made.
And thus, all we’ve done is destroyed our economic output, hurt our businesses, caused greater unemployment, lowered the tax revenue to government, and made it more expensive to live. Please explain where the value in that is? There has to be another way, because Cap and Trade is not it.
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes in reliable and abundant energy, not false dreams.
