Three Philosophical Questions About Energy (Interview)

[Editor Note: This interview of Alex Epstein was conducted by Jordan McGillis, a graduate student at Seton Hall University. Mr. Epstein, a philosopher, has expanded the energy debate in recent years by adding a moral and interpretive dimension to classical energy-policy debates.]

1. It’s been objectively demonstrated that practices such as frac’ing produce abundant, affordable, and reliable energy, and yet, they are virulently resisted by much of the public. Why, despite the evidence of frac’ing’s value, is it, along with other productive practices, so loathed? Are there some underlying political or philosophical ideas at work here?

Consider: this is a technology that literally cures hunger–through natural-gas-produced fertilizers, through oil-powered agricultural machinery. It cures disease–through insecticides synthesized from oil and gas, and through pharmaceuticals, also synthesized through oil and gas. And it “cures” unemployment, both from the productive opportunities it generates within the field of energy production, and the lower energy costs it bequeaths on every other American industry.

The alleged risk is groundwater contamination, which has nothing to do with frac’ing, which occurs thousands of feet of impermeable rock below the water table. It’s just a standard, relatively minor and eminently manageable risk. Unlike the risk of not frac’ing, which guarantees unnecessary suffering and death.

When I frame the issue in this way, I have yet to meet a person who objects to frac’ing outside of committed anti-industrialists/”environmentalists”–that is, those who explicitly place the non-human environment over the human environment.

The problem with the public’s view of hydraulic fracturing, as with every other practical form of energy, is that its advocates don’t know how to advocate it as a moral ideal, they allow the other side to own the value issues (such as a healthy environment), and they allow the other side to frame the moral choice we face (for example, choosing between safety or “dangerous” frac’ing). If you look at who wins debates, there are at least three things that winners do:

Based on our experience at CIP, if this approach of taking the moral high ground were applied throughout industry, politics, and the think-tank world, the anti-industrialists would lose their moral authority and be exposed as the technophobes they are.

One aspect of “energy security” is the security of our energy supply from foreign enemies. This threat, incidentally, is significant wherever your energy is produced and whatever kind it is. Because energy is fundamental, it is a natural target, whether that means cutting off an oil trade route or slashing key cables of the proposed national “smart grid.” This category of “energy security” is important, and should be dealt with by a confident, self-interested foreign policy.

The other form of “energy security” is a woozy idea that our supplies will be insecure unless X percent of energy is produced domestically. This is a dubious idea, mostly applied to oil, by people who don’t have a very good understanding of how globally integrated the economy is–and what benefits that confers on us in terms of energy reliability. And reliability is really the issue. Talk of “energy independence” ignores the fact that any attempt at an energy subsistence farm means a) more expensive energy, by definition (if all domestic energy was cheaper, you wouldn’t have to coerce people into using it) and b) dependence on a single government’s rationality or lack thereof. From my perspective as a consumer, it’s crucial to be part of a network wherein if the US government suppresses energy policy-wise or there’s just an unforeseen disaster, we can potentially trade with any energy producer in the world. True reliability lies in being free to pursue as many options as possible, not putting all of one’s eggs in a nationalist government basket.

Of course, I advocate removing all barriers to domestic production of energy, and that would naturally lead to much greater amounts of domestic production.

This is a huge issue, which we are addressing comprehensively in our upcoming online resource, The Industrial Encyclopedia. That gives an issue-by-issue breakdown of the most important energy/environment issues, framed in a way that we believe will most clearly enable readers to see the relationship between a given issue and human life. It does not talk about “the environment” (except in the fallacies section) because that is on obstacle to individuals understanding the relationship between energy and life.