There Can Won’t Be Only One

First a warning, I know I’m the resident “lighting guy” here at Konstructr. This post is something a little different. I hope it’s thought provoking and I hope it generates some conversation out there. Give it a read and remember we read every comment, so I can’t wait to see what you guys have to say.

A few months into our dating, my wife got me into Highlander, the TV series from the 90’s for the uninitiated. Immortals from every age live among us, encounter one another engage in pitched battle to the death (by beheading-only). The point of all this is eventually there Can be only One.

Sometimes when I delve into my twitter stream of blog posts they cover anything from construction law issues, or green product development or energy efficiency, I begin to get the sense that there are a series of solutions out there each fighting to be the last one standing. It’s as if they are all immortal and like my hero Duncan McCleod would say, “In the End, There Can Be Only One.”

Singular solutions are what got us into the trouble we’re in now. Using coal and coal (nearly) alone to fire our power plants, and gasoline exclusively to power our automobiles, led us to the creation of systemic problems rather than isolated ones. The use of petrol fuel in our automobiles isn’t just a threat to our planet, but to our economy and to our national security. It’s an inherent systemic flaw in the American way of life that was allowed to develop ever since the Model T rolled off the assembly line.

However, to turn our automobiles away from petrol based-sources means turning them to the grid, a grid in need of drastic updating, and new power supplies. The idea that only wind, or only solar, or only nuclear will solve our energy crisis is simply foolhardy. Burning more coal doesn’t solve any of the previously mentioned systemic issues, moreover it does nothing to prevent catastrophic climate change. Massive investment in nuclear, solar, and wind energy and all delivery technologies at our disposal must be employed to fill our current needs and provide growth for future generations. Even those efforts won’t be enough without gains in efficiency.

Here again there will be more than one solution to sustainability. We must rid ourselves of the idea in any given industry one technology will solve the current inefficiency of a given system. LED lighting will not in and of itself some the problem of energy use to light our buildings. Smarter controls, integration of better fluorescent lighting, better day-lighting and less “over-lighting” of our spaces will all make lighting less energy intensive in the future.

Sadly, on the macro level, there is only one way to stimulate innovation and move industries away from a carbon based energy supply. We must make carbon more expensive. Here again, a purely liberal answer “throw more money at renewables” and the conservative answer “do nothing, let the market decide” will both fail. The only way to bring us forward is to blend the two.

So here’s what I propose (the comment section awaits) I would like to see rapid increases on taxes for gasoline and coal-fired electricity. We saw a change in consumer behavior when gas hit $4 per gallon not $3.50, the increase in cost will burden low-income Americans and it will hurt businesses in the short term, but I believe Americans are ready to make a real shared sacrifice.

The added funds from these tax increases would fund a national energy project similar in size and scope to that of the interstate project of the 1940’s and 50’s. For ever $1 a state or local government spent on a highway, the federal government spent $0.92 in matching funds, that program gave the US the robust highway system we enjoy to day. I am suggesting employing a similar fund matching system to the renewable energy market in the US. What this approach will do is give local governments the opportunity to stimulate their economies with the kind of local infrastructure improvements that will fundamentally change the ways Americans live the same way the highway system did. It will also let the free market decide what system is best for a given locality. A windfall of competitively bid project will flow, and the market will innovate us to new solutions on energy creation and delivery.

We can solve these big problems with ingenuity, sacrifice and singularity of purpose. There is no silver bullet. In the end. There Won’t Be Only One.