The other night, I found myself representing America in a forum with journalists from around the world, assembled in Germany to study this nation’s unwavering march towards a renewable energy system.
We were on a riverboat restaurant on Berlin’s Spree, around the bend from the chancellor’s digs, a stroll from the Bundestag.
Two German energy wags debated whether the stimulus efforts attempted by the US and others would be “steps toward recovery or pathways to progress.” I did not understand. Were those concepts supposed to be mutually exclusive? Was there a shaded nuisance in the question that my American mind was ill-suited to comprehend? I was asked to lead the response to the debaters on behalf of 13 journalists, from the US, Estonia, Chile, China, Vietnam, India and the Philippines.
Michael Kohlhaas, research associate with the German Institute department of energy, transport and environment, said that the rush to spend swiftly to stimulate the economy could mean we will fall back into bad habits of overspending, over consuming, pilling up debt and bringing down the environment.
We won’t have the discipline and resources to tackle long-term priorities like ramping up renewable and efficient energy systems, he said. Look at Houston, he chided. They are using stimulus funds to fix their highways. What kind of insanity is that?
Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf, at the Ecologic Institute, continued the theme. “The stimulus package will never address urban sprawl.”
The mike was handed to me.
Americans and their intelligent, focused new president are capable of chewing gum and thinking at the same time, I told them. We need to fix our economy first and foremost. That does not mean we cannot take care of long-term planning for our energy future.
As for highways, I reminded the Germans, easing traffic congestion and allowing cars to travel faster abates pollution. And highways are not evil. They are, after all, necessary if the plug-in electrics we plan to build are going to have any purpose.
Ulvar Kaart, a witty, thoughtful journalist with the Tallinn, Estonia newspaper, slipped over to me after the fireworks, grinned, and said, “I liked what you said. Especially about the highways.”
Of course, after such exchanges, you always think of something that you should have said. There are venture capitalists in the US now investigating development of a road surface that would actually absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That is the American way. It may work and produce the next Carnegie or Gates. Or it may fail. Meanwhile, the Germany will pay upwards of 43 eurocents a kilowatt hour to pump photovoltaic solar panels out in the hope that the technology takes hold and costs rapidly decline. Many jobs are being created in the process, they say.
Here is hoping that one day we all may see vastly more affordable solar panels on delivery trucks speeding down highways – built with stimulus money - sipping CO2 out of the air around the clock.
Marc