Renewable Energy and Polyester Leisure Suits

My generation now laughs at the fashions of the 1970s. I personally never liked bell bottoms, white belts, or double-knit polyester leisure suits. But they were all the rage; we wore them or risked appearing uncool.

Fashions change, but do we? We still want to stay on top of the latest trends, however strange they may look years later. We are like that in our politics. Consider the craze a few years ago to switch our energy use to alternative sources that seemed so easily renewable compared to the dwindling supply of oil and gas. We now know that our gas supplies are exponentially greater than we thought, and the U.S. is well on its way to becoming the world’s largest oil exporter.

Yet where individual consumers can change course overnight, energy policy is largely dictated by government, which changes only at a snail’s pace. Energy policies in Colorado, and at the national level, have become convoluted paths to attain what should have been simple goals.

The national Renewable Fuels Standard is a prime example. Enacted by Congress in 2005, it was supposed to protect the country from future oil supply disruptions. But rather than encourage more domestic production, now the most obvious solution, it promoted creation of a giant ethanol industry.

Expanded in 2007, the RFS now requires refiners to blend increasing amounts of ethanol into the nation’s transportation fuels every year. Not content to burn large portions of America’s corn crop — 42 percent in 2012 — to produce alcohol-based fuel, it also requires blending in cellulosic ethanol made from wood and other plants.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered American refiners to blend 8.65 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol into the fuel pool. No cellulosic ethanol was available in commercial quantities, even according to EPA’s own data. But rather than acknowledge that reality, the agency required refiners to buy “credits” (translation: pay a fine) for failing to use the phantom fuel. The cost: more than $8 million, adding to already-soaring fuel prices.

In response to this ruse, the oil industry sued the EPA and won. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the agency should base its RFS mandates on facts, not “aspirations.” But instead of complying with the order, the EPA is requiring refiners to blend even more cellulosic ethanol — 14 million gallons — in 2013.

In 2011, the National Academy of Sciences found that “the high cost of producing cellulosic biofuels compared with petroleum-based fuels” makes it uncompetitive in the marketplace. Undaunted, the EPA is still pressing the impossible mandate.

In Colorado, the American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center sued the state for its RES, which requires utilities to use renewable energy to produce 10-20 percent of their electricity by 2020.

Renewable energy is far more expensive today than coal or gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average cost for gas-powered plants entering service in 2017 will be $66 per megawatt-hour. For solar-powered plants, the cost is $153 per megawatt-hour, $96 per megawatt-hour for wind energy, and $115 per megawatt-hour for biomass.

It is ironic that Colorado, blessed with an abundance of natural gas being sold at historically low prices, continues to require more costly energy, supposedly to save money. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine a more nonsensical program than the federal RFS. In both cases, they are outdated fashions that ought to go the way of polyester leisure suits.

This post previously appeared as a guest editorial in the Denver Post