Times Change…Will Attitudes?

The passage of the Energy Bill may be the last major marker at the end of an era. But not perhaps in total, the one that you would immediately picture. For, over the past decades, as oil replaced coal as the major fuel source, and natural gas also took its share of the market, proponents of each fuel have sought advantage at the cost to the other.

Tradeoffs and political favoritism has led to the passage of legislation that helps one source of power over another, and the management of each has sought to cut the costs to generate product, in order to remain competitive. Thus mining companies have fought for relief from some provisions that were sought to tighten environmental constraints on their operation. Oil companies sought tax relief as they put together the billion dollars or so required to drill in the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Each step had, as a driver, the need for that fuel to remain competitive, against the inroads of the other into the market.

Those days are coming to a close. As the nation and the world move to a time that we will need all sources of energy to meet the world supply in its various forms, the pressures to shave that last cent from the price of a ton of coal, for example, will no longer be there.

Much more after the jump at The Oil Drum.