U.S. Department of Energy's Spending on Renewables

Here’s a long and quite scholarly article a reader sent me from the Heritage Foundation, an ultra-conservative think-tank whose principal spokesperson appears to be Rush Limbaugh.  (I’m not sure that’s a good choice if they wish to be taken seriously by an intellectual audience, but they evidently don’t see it that way.)

While I disagree with the author’s conclusions, I thought I’d link to the piece insofar as it provides a breakdown of spending within the U.S. Department of Energy that I thought readers would find valuable; I certainly did.

Obviously, the author is entitled to his opinion that the DoE should not be investing in new energy technologies.  But he needs to consider that this is more than an ideological issue; it’s also a practical matter.  Such spending is absolutely required if the U.S. is to compete in the energy industry in the 21st Century, and join the rest of the world in going beyond its dependence on fossil fuels.  Having said that, if our country is content to fade into irrelevance in order to make the oil-rich even richer, he’s offering the perfect recipe.

You should know that The Heritage Foundation is funded by ExxonMobil, Chevron and the Koch Brothers, so you’ll need to come to your own conclusions.  Mine: their opinions on the subject aren’t too surprising.