Many "energy efficiency" policies are woefully misguided and ill-informed, even right here in Washington | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    And they are dangerous because they distract from achieving real solutions

    At a recent candidates forum for the Washington City Council the question was raised about how to reduce our electrical bills. Several of the candidates posited "load management" as an effective way of doing that. Nobody questioned it, but candidate Doug Mercer did opine that, except in certain cases (typically large commercial operations), load management was "peanuts" compared to the issue of ever increasing costs of wholesale power.

    The same board recently pursued an energy efficiency grant for a few selected businesses in Washington. That grant was based on "data" which suggested "savings" from the more efficient use of things such as light bulbs.

    Now Dr. Roy Cordato of the John Locke Foundation has published a report that says that the data and science behind much of the "energy efficiency" approach to electric rates is bogus and even where it is legitimate, the benefits are miniscule in most cases. He says:

    • Energy efficiency, as defined by those who embrace it as a policy guide, is focused strictly on saving energy even if it means sacrificing overall economic efficiency.

    • Energy efficiency programs focus on the relationship between one input into the production process, energy, relative to the output generated by that process.

    • This simplistic view makes no consideration for the strong possibility that other inputs -- labor, plastic, steal, copper, glass, etc. -- might actually increase.

    • Economic efficiency, on the other hand, relates total costs to the value of the output that those costs generate.

    • We may observe people making decisions that we consider to be inefficient, but the proper conclusion to draw is that we, not they, are misperceiving their costs and benefits.

    • In order for an increase in energy to translate into an increase in economic efficiency, it would have to result in an overall decrease in the average cost of production or, if you are a consumer, the cost of consumption. The people implementing the energy efficiency plan would have to be better off from their own perspectives.

    • Mandates and special incentive programs would not have to be put in place to promote energy efficiency, unless we assume that the government is in a better position to judge the best interest of individuals or businesses than the individuals or businesses themselves.

    • When experts and policy advocates push energy taxes, incentives, and mandates to promote energy efficiency, they are doing what Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek warned against: crafting public policy through a "pretense of knowledge." They pretend to have information about other people's preferences and alternative uses of resource that they could not possibly obtain.

    • Ultimately, energy efficiency programs are necessarily an exercise in paternalism and behavior modification.

    Click here to review the report.

    Commentary

    While we agree with Dr. Cordato conclusions about what is behind this "energy conservation" movement we think something else is going on here in addition. That is, a displacement of responsibility. If these pushers of load managment and conservation can make the public feel it is they who are responsible for lowering the cost of electricity then they get a pass on their mistakes in policies that have caused much of hte exhorbitant costs...such as the resistence to deregulation of the power industry. We think you even saw that in the recent City Council candidates' forum.

    There is the argument that "every little bit helps." We heard that about recycling. But that is a perverted logic. It is like saying that if an elementary class takes up cans of food that it will help the starving children Africa we see on the news. The real problem is that the politics and corruption in those countries is what cause more deaths by malnutrition and not an actual shortage of food. The kids who bring food to their project feel better--like they're doing good--but in reality it makes so little difference in the actual problem it is bad because it displaces focus on solving the real problem.

    This energy efficiency business is but one more example of the liberal foolishness that parades as "science." As we have suggested elsewhere on this site, our leaders would do much better figuring out how to use free market forces to provide greater competition in energy production, distribution and use than in paying for such things as gadgets to turn off a home hot water heater for a few minutes or replacing lights bulbs.

    The real danger of such practices is that they diffuse focus from what the real problems are that need to be solved. Conservation is great. It just will not solve the problem of high electric rates.

    But that is the way Elitist Liberals function. They mean well, but have just not come to grips with the reality of human nature.