In another of those great stories I wish I had written, but didn't, Robert Bryce, managing editor of Energy Tribune, has put renewable energy into perspective by the numbers.  At the present time, renewables (wind and solar) provide about 1.1 percent of our electricity, or the equivalent of about 76,000 barrels of oil per day.  That compares to America’s primary energy use of the equivalent of 47 million barrels of oil per day.  Obama wants to double the renewable share in three years, after it was doubled during the last two or three years of the Bush Administration.

As Bryce says, "getting from 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to something close to the 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day needed to keep the U.S. economy running is going to take a long, long time" even if renewables do double every three years.

Bryce has solar panels on his roof.  I don't, but would if I could afford them.  Neither of us is opposed to renewables, especially if you include hydro (being discouraged, 200 dams have been removed) and nuclear (balled up in bureaucratic nightmares and environmentalist opposition).  But what Bryce, and I, have been saying all along is that it is going to be many years before wind and solar can replace hydrocarbons, especially if you exclude dams and block nuclear. 

Putting additional taxes on hydrocarbons (cap and trade) is only going to drive up the cost of electricity for everyone, probably double it in those same three years.  It also will siphon off billions (trillions?) that will be needed to make the transition and disrupt an electric system that has served well for 100 years.  Making electricity unaffordable for the masses and potentially bankrupting utilities, at the same time you're trying to encourage a long-term transition to renewables, just doesn’t sound like good public policy to me.

Bryce’s full article in the Wall Street Journal is available here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123621221496034823.html?mod=djemEditorialPage