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The 20th century

relative to the price of coal, and deregu-

and affordable. The new energy tech-

lation and market adjustments not only

nologies are now moving rapidly

has revealed

returned prices to "normal" levels but

down the same engineering cost

most alternative

made hydrocarbon prices lower than

curves.1 9 8

and unconven-

they would have been without the ini-

tial government intervention (the

Yet the 20th century has time and again

tional energy

boom-bust price cycle).

revealed most alternative and unconven-

technologies to

· Technological improvement was occur-

tional energy technologies to be "primitive"

and "uneconomical" compared with fossil-

ring with both conventional and

be "primitive" and

fuel technologies, particularly for trans-

unconventional energies, not just

"uneconomical."

portation but also for the stationary mar-

unconventional energies.

· Rising energy prices were increasing not

ket. Alternative energy technologies are not

new; they have a long history. As the

only revenue from the sale of synthetics

Department of Energy stated back in 1988,

but also the cost of making them, given

"The use of renewable energy dates back to

the sensitivity of capital-intensive syn-

antiquity."  1 9 9 Conventional energy tech-

thetic fuel plants to energy costs.

nologies, on the other hand, are not mired

Those reasons may apply to the next gen-

in the past. They have been setting a torrid

eration of government-subsidized energies

pace for unconventional energies and can

being touted as substitutes for crude oil, nat-

be expected to continue to do so in the

ural gas, and coal.

decades ahead, if not longer.

Environmentalists are quite discriminat-

Energy Technologies--

ing with their "technological optimism";

Environmental Motivations

they will have none of it for fossil fuels and

Despite the demonstrable failure of gov-

even less for nuclear power. In 1988 the

ernment intervention to assist politically

Sierra Club opposed congressional interest

favored fuels, environmentalists continue to

in subsidizing research on a "safe" nuclear

hold out hope and to strike an optimistic

plant, since "we have doubts that develop-

ment of such a plant is possible."2 0 0 A

pose on the basis of a particular interpreta-

tion of technological progress. The words of

decade later more than 100 environmental

Christopher Flavin and Seth Dunn of the

organizations railed against a $30 million

Worldwatch Institute typify the environmen-

proposed allocation in the Clinton admin-

talist rejoinder.

istration's $6.3 billion Climate Change

Action Plan (.5 percent) to help extend the

Although some economists argue

operating life of existing nuclear plants. In

that it will be expensive to develop

their judgment, the risk of radiation poi-

alternatives to fossil fuels--and that

soning was as great as or greater than that

of global warming.2 0 1 Would mainstream

we should delay the transition as long

as possible--their conclusions are

environmentalists

support

ongoing

based on a technological pessimism

research by Pacific Gas and Electric

that is out of place in today's world.

Company to seed clouds to increase rainfall

Just as automobiles eclipsed horses,

to increase hydroelectricity output,2 0 2 or

and computers supplanted typewrit-

would they reject enhancing this renewable

ers and slide rules, so can the advance

resource as an intervention by man in

of technology make today's energy

nature? In reality, opponents of fossil fuels

systems look primitive and uneco-

and nuclear energy--and even hydroelec-

nomical. The first automobiles and

tricity--can be characterized as pessimistic

computers were expensive and diffi-

about the most prolific technologies in the

cult to use, but soon became practical

electricity market today.

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