Report Gives “Hard Facts” on American Energy
Utility MACT Takes Effect
May 9, 2012PACE: Climate Change Editorial Offbase
May 22, 2012In a national energy debate that lacks consensus about the best way forward, a new report seeks to create a factual platform for policy makers and the public. Recently, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) published Hard Facts: An Energy Primer, a 73-page report that defines key energy terms, presents basic facts about energy supply and demand, and clarifies commonly misunderstood information on topics such as emissions from the energy sector.
“Hard Facts is a report with great explanatory power for anyone interested in the future of energy in America, mainly because it provides a baseline of essential knowledge about where we’ve come from and where we are,” explains PACE Executive Lance Brown. “We believe that if policy makers use accurate data to decide our energy future, the choices could not be more clear.”
For example, the report points out that while coal-fired generation of electricity has increased by more than 180% since 1970, the so-called six ‘criteria pollutants’ identified by the Environmental Protection Agency have fallen by 63%. Moreover, American GDP has increased by 204% during that time period. Taken collectively, the statistics shatter the common narrative that using America’s native fossil energy sources and creating economic growth comes at the cost of dirtier air. That notion is simply not supported by fact.
The report also creates context for American energy policy by pointing out that while CO2 emissions from the U.S. have actually fallen in the last decade, China has increased its output of CO2 by more than 167% during the same time period, becoming by far the biggest global contributor of greenhouse gases. This is likely to be news to members of the public who are often told that the U.S. is the world’s greatest climate offender.
“The environmental industry would have us believe that America must trade traditional sources of power for new ones, or else accept dirty air and water. That ‘going green’ is the only way to have both economic growth and environmental gains,” says Brown. “The irony is that the very system they rail against is the one that has been delivering on their core vision for the past forty years, all while keeping power prices affordable and energy supplies reliable.”
