For holidays to come, invest in new fuels

| The New Mexican

7/5/2008 - 7/5/08

It'll be a few days before the figures are in, but the view so far this holiday weekend is of lots of cars on our state's highways. Here in el norte, Texas plates are in profusion — a fair number of them affixed to motor homes.

Fewer of them are rolling off dealers' lots, and the Winnebago factories in Iowa have laid off a few hundred workers —but so many have already been built that there's not a notable shortage of them in public and commercial parks.

Our mountain coolness, even in this time of terrible gasoline prices, is trumping the notion of sitting home sweltering.

But how many New Mexicans, especially from around here, are on the road today?

Probably plenty are enjoying the Sangre de Cristo canyons, trips to which involve only a few gallons at $4 per.

But nearly everyone's keeping a close watch on the wallet — and cursing villains of various kinds for the high prices at the pump.

The blackest hats, at the moment, are worn by speculators in oil futures.

The bright spot in the gloom is that Congress, most of whose members face election in November, is making overdue efforts to control petroleum speculation.

But beware of predictions from Democrats and Republicans alike that tighter regulation of the oil-futures markets will bring down the price of gas.

As The New York Times' tough-minded economist Paul Krugman mentioned in a recent column, oil isn't the only thing soaring in price: Iron ore headed for Chinese steel mills is commanding nearly twice what it did last year — and that commodity isn't traded on any high-stakes exchange.

To Krugman, and others, the growing demand in China, India and other ballooning economies is what's causing the steep price increases of raw material.

You've heard the term "coals to Newcastle" applied to wasted effort, that English city once being famed for its coal mines? Well now it's coal to China. That nation has enormous coal reserves — yet now it's importing more than it exports, mostly from Vietnam and Australia.

It's passing the United States as the world's biggest burner of coal as it sheds its last vestiges of communist penury and flexes its consumerist and manufacturing muscle.

How soon will coal cars from Wyoming and New Mexico be headed for California docks and Chinese ports? And if Congress knuckles under energy-lobby pressure, opening more offshore oil drilling, how much of the stuff will reduce our "dependence on foreign oil," and how much will go straight to China?

It's time for a time-out on the carbon-burning front — a brief one, because we've got to develop a whole range of alternatives.

We're encouraged by the joint effort, announced by New Mexico's four biggest electric operations, to build a solar-energy plant capable of powering 30,000-50,000 homes.

In combination with the wind generators out on our plains, it's evidence that someone's getting serious about sensible sources of energy.

Cheaper sources? Don't believe it: Governmental subsidies and higher rates to offset development costs will keep us paying more, for now at least.

And if Congress gets serious about hydrogen or other new ways of moving us around the country on far-future Fourth-of-July weekends, that'll cost us plenty, too.

But way down the road — the one your grandkids might travel — there could be more-stable, less-destructive, sources of energy.

We've got to begin now.