Guest Comment: A dispassionate look at domestic energy policies

Nearly everyone agrees that energy is a primary and critical component of our American economy and lifestyle. Whether we like it or not, without abundant, affordable energy in all its forms we as a society would revert to living in caves, riding horseback, and looking for ways to start fires to stay warm and cook whatever food we could catch or gather.

Today’s debate over energy policy is long on emotion, platitudes, and politics and woefully short on objective, rational analysis and discussion of realistic alternatives. This essay is an attempt to provide the latter.

Let’s begin the discussion with an analogy. The late 1960s saw the beginning of the “minicomputer” era, the precursor to today’s ubiquitous PCs. Prior to that time, computers were gigantic machines, requiring large, air-conditioned rooms and tremendous amounts of power. They were also very expensive.

With the advent of the minicomputer, businesses could buy a much smaller computer, smaller than today’s average refrigerator, at a much lower price albeit with less computing power than the big machines. Minicomputers could be located right in the office or factory floor and they provided adequate compute power for the application where they were used.

These early minicomputers were dependent on a critical memory technology called “magnetic core memory,” functionally identical to semiconductor RAM in today’s PCs but based on an older technology.

While the following scenario didn’t actually happen, suppose that it did. Magnetic core memory was made from tiny rings formed out of powdered iron. Suppose in 1972, as the minicomputer industry was just starting to “boom,” there was a sudden shortage of iron. Such a condition naturally results in higher prices for whatever iron could be purchased.

At that point, minicomputer manufacturers would be presented with a number of choices. One would be simply to pay the higher price for the magnetic core memory and pass the cost on to their customers. The risk is that the market might no longer afford to buy the higher priced minicomputers and the market would die, thus putting the minicomputer manufacturers out of business.

Another choice would be to pursue additional sources of iron, which would increase the supply and thus drive prices for iron back down.

Another choice would be to look for alternate technologies to replace magnetic core memories with something else not yet invented.

And if this were the preferred choice, would it be wise to stop production of magnetic core memories immediately and, therefore, all minicomputers, and wait until some successful alternate technology became available at some unknown point in the future?

Or would it be prudent to continue with magnetic core memories until that to-be-developed alternative became available?

In the world of technology, success of any technology idea is not guaranteed, so the latter choice is the only choice if the minicomputer manufacturers wanted to stay in business.

In the early 1970s, minicomputer manufacturers were actually faced with those same decisions but not due to a shortage of iron. Due to the success of the minicomputer market, for several business and technical reasons, magnetic core memories were no longer a viable component in minicomputers. Thus some alternative to magnetic core memories became necessary for the minicomputer industry to continue to thrive.

Many alternative technologies were proposed, developed, and subsequently failed in the marketplace. However, one technology, semiconductor RAMs, did succeed in the marketplace and after several generations of enhancements is still used in virtually every computer made today.

It is important to note that during this transition period from magnetic core memories to semiconductor RAMs, minicomputer manufacturers continued to use the magnetic core memories, until the semiconductor RAMs were plentiful, reliable, and cost effective enough to meet the demands of the marketplace.

What conclusions can we draw from this analogy? First, no one would deny that choice in any area is a good thing. Energy is no different. The more alternative sources of energy we can draw from, the better. The United States is the most technologically innovative country on earth. When creative scientists and engineers are turned loose in the marketplace, wonderful things happen.

The Constitution of the United States, specifically the 10th Amendment, explicitly forbids the federal government from “investing” in energy alternatives. Turn private industry loose on the problem, motivated by profit and free from government constraints, and it will create incredible alternative energy sources. Only in socialist countries does the government pick winners and losers in business.

As in the minicomputer scenario, we need to create both short- and long-term solutions to the problem at hand. We need to develop a short-term solution that will keep our economy moving, continue our American lifestyle, and remain affordable until a successful long-term solution is developed. Obviously, this means an increased supply of fossil fuels, especially oil and gas, including new refineries.

At the same time, we need to work aggressively on the long-term solution. But since the successful technologies have not been completely developed yet, we cannot simply sit back and wait until they arrive.

Technology development, especially in an area as complex as energy, takes many years of trial and error to determine the long-term safety, viability, and cost-effectiveness of an alternative. It must also work on a large scale in the real world and not just in the carefully controlled laboratory environment.

And once an alternative is chosen, it takes still more years to develop the necessary infrastructure to utilize that alternative effectively.

For example, if fuel cell vehicles are the way of the future, it will take years to put a nationwide network of hydrogen / oxygen filling stations in place. Do we not travel by automobile in the meantime?

Key characteristics of a successful alternative energy are that it is plentiful and affordable on its own merits, comparable to the energy we use today. Government subsidies to make a technology “affordable” only make it more expensive for all of us due to higher taxes to pay for the subsidies. Government mandates are not helpful either. Look what happened to worldwide food prices after congress required increased use of ethanol fuels.

Hysteric, unrealistic, quixotic goals of “saving the planet” cannot be allowed to overrule rational, economically- and environmentally sound energy policies.

If we are to develop alternative energy sources successfully on a nationwide basis, we will need to take a calm, rational, businesslike, technology-driven approach to solving the problem.

We cannot choose an emotional, irrational, political demand for some magic cure-all energy source that hasn’t been invented yet and then expect it to be available tomorrow. Or worse yet, we cannot destroy our economy and our lifestyle while we wait and hope for some unknown future solution to arrive.

Thomas Fava and his wife Joan are retired and have lived in Green Valley for almost two years. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He spent his entire 38-year career in private industry as a product development engineer and engineering manager working for several major computer manufacturers. He holds four U.S. patents and one Japanese patent for computer storage system inventions. The views expressed are the writer's own and do not reflect those of this newspaper.