NEWS
Going ‘green’ is right path for Indiana
10/10/2008
Opinion/Editorial
Palladium Item
Optimism may seem a hard thing to come by at the moment when the economy is faltering and Americans this week are opening quarterly 401(k) statements and learning firsthand just how hard this economy is impacting retirement fortunes.
But if the dot.com boom of the 1990s drove the U.S. economy to record gains, it should be possible to imagine that energy-related industries like Brevini and the promise of vastly reduced costs for less polluting non-fossil fuels will prove the engine to the next great global economic boom.
There is a necessary government role—federal, state and local—in the research and development of promising new alternate energies. Wind power generation, for example, that already powers some 4.5 million American homes without pollution, are a promising industry but one that already has made clear it cannot move forward without federal tax credits, now set to expire at year’s end.
Solar power similarly holds promise that will require tax policy nurturing.
There will likely be losers as a result of the combined roles of markets and government incentives. Government policy, based on public demand and available science, will help separate those winners from losers. For example, Indiana ranks sixth in the nation in ethanol production, but unless the troubling tradeoff of using foods to generate energy can be altered, ethanol and related biofuels will prove little more than a transition energy source.
Nuclear power holds vast potential, as France has proven since supplying most of its own electrical needs via nuclear and becoming a net exporter of nuclear-generating power. But the U.S. government has a long way to go and a lot of hurdles to clear to realize the same potential.
This east central region of Indiana boasts the state’s highest point as well as its highest unemployment. We hope the promise of the former, and its relationship to wind power, can help impact the prolonged drudgery of the other, and soon.