One of the single greatest threats to American national security, as well as economic security, is our unsustainable and overreaching demand for energy. Currently, we use dirty fuels that have barely a few decades of efficient supply left. At the same time, we remain dangerously beholden to foreign countries to supply our energy, and we are often over-reaching with our military to protect strategic resources like oil. The only way to ensure true energy security is to have 100 percent of American energy domestically produced and environmentally conscious.

The problem is how to get to the point of energy independence and full sustainability. First, most electricity in the United States is coal-generated, which is a dirty practice that not only contributes to atmospheric warming, but also destroys the geography of areas with coal deposits by strip mining or mountaintop removal — methods that devastate local ecology.

The only true replacement for coal-generated electricity is nuclear power, which usually makes environmentalists cringe. Well, the days of Three Mile Island and unsafe waste storage are nearly gone, and in their wake, a new generation of nuclear power facilities that are very secure and can generate massive amounts of continuous power with little environmental damage. Nuclear power is the only renewable option as a base load generator for our electrical needs.

The problem is cost, a problem that could be offset by government grants available conditionally based on the use of the newest and safest methods of nuclear generation, as well as the safe disposal of nuclear waste.

Now what about wind or solar energy? Can’t they replace coal, and aren’t they cheaper than nuclear power? Actually, not really. The problem with wind and solar generation is at the most basic level possible: The wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine. This means they are good supplements to a base load generator like nuclear power but can never adequately be stable base loads themselves.

So how does one fundamentally alter the energy portfolio of the entire country? The answer lies in aggressive public policy with incentives for renewable energy and strong disincentives for non-renewables.

In 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, deemed as a ‘stimulus’ by pundits. Although this columnist feels it wasn’t as immediate an investment that was needed to lift the country out of a recession, it contained a number of useful programs dealing with our energy issues. Specifically, the Section 1603 cash grant is credited with the creation of 40,000 renewable energy jobs.

The way this particular incentive functions is it offers the option of a cash grant instead of the already established tax credit for renewable energy companies, based on their renewable energy output. When the financial crisis hit, those tax credits were very ineffectual incentives, because renewable energy companies needed capital more than they needed tax relief. So the Section 1603 cash grant offers them the needed capital to continue growing their business and hiring workers.

‘The program is a more efficient use of taxpayer money because 100 percent of the incentive goes to the company making the investment and creating the jobs. Taxpayers get more jobs and clean energy per dollar spent.’ So says the American Wind Energy Association, which represents nearly 100,000 workers in the wind energy field, a group that has not minced words about the efficacy of the Section 1603 grant.

Next month, the Section 1603 cash grant of the stimulus bill will go up for reconsideration in Congress, and it certainly deserves full renewal to help stimulate greater investment in renewable energy technology. The beauty of the grant is that it costs the government no more money than did the tax credit, so it is a regulatory change that doesn’t short-change anyone. We need more innovative programs that provide incentives to the growth of a domestic green economy, one that will truly guarantee energy security — no war required.

Luke Lanciano is a junior political science major. His column appears every Tuesday, and he can be reached at lllancia@syr.edu.

Published on October 25, 2010 at 12:00 pm