Even T.Boone Pickens, oilman and financier of the Swiftboats Smear campaign against Presidential candidate John Kerry, has recognized that there is a global contest for Energy Innovation going on right now that will determine which countries will be economically prosperous – and which countries will be playing catch up.
Because the countries that perfect renewable energy sources will a)have a competitive advantage in their own economies and b)will have everybody beating a path to their door to buy their energy efficient processes and technology. So it is interesting to see the positions taken by the traditional energy industries. It reminds one of the Tobacco Lobby in their concerted efforts to delay the inevitable change. Yet these are the folks that are beneficiaries of huge tax breaks to provide energy change and independence. As one MBA friend in the Oil and Gas business disclosed this Winter to me – “why should we invest in risky alternative energy when we can earn better than 40% on existing oil and gas projects?”
So it is with great concern when “Country First” and the “Great Maverick” John McCain appears to be hanging up his spurs and capitulating to the Oil and Gas companies. He signaled that with four votes against extending the existing alternative energy incentives for wind and solar while also deep-sixing key sectors of the recent Energy act. The trend has become so blatant that Thomas Friedman in the NYTimes has even gone on record to say that John McCain has abandoned any serious alternative energy efforts. This is a pity since the evidence is in that peculiarly Bushwhacking political tactics – Wind and Solar power are deceitful visual elements only in his many campaign ads. John McCain, political maverick, I don’t think so – more and more there is evidence which gives great credence to the Democratic argument that John McCain is married to the Republican political mob.