Power Episode 6: The Truth About “Alternative Energy” with Tom Tanton

On the latest episode of Power Hour–the monthly Internet Radio Show where I interview today’s top energy experts to discuss today’s top energy issues–I talked to energy consultant Tom Tanton, an expert on the technology and the politics of “alternative energy.”

We hear all the time about the exciting promise of “alternative energy”–and the variations of it: “green energy,” “clean energy,” “renewable energy.” “Alternative energy,” roughly speaking, refer to sources of energy that are not successful on the market now but that proponents claim will be superior to market sources of energy, if only the government gets involved.

For instance, Al Gore, in arguing for the abolition of all CO2-emitting electricity, and much of CO2-emitting transportation by 2018, said that he knows of ”renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per-gallon gasoline.”

On past shows we’ve looked at some of these so-called alternative energies on a technical level, understanding why it’s so hard for, say, solar panels to be affordable and reliable as a major source of energy. On this show we take a different angle. We are going to look at some of the history of how government-led alternative energy works in practice. How does it actually work when the government promotes wind turbines or electric cars?

To talk about this issue, I brought on Tom Tanton, a man who knows as much about the reality of alternative energy as anyone–because he worked for three decades at the California Energy Commission, which has spearheaded numerous alternative energy programs over the decades, including programs for just about every “new” technology we hear about today. I think you’ll learn a lot from this episode.

(By the way, if you want an easy way to fit Power Hour into your schedule, download it to your MP3 player and listen to it during your commute.)

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