As game theorists know, many everyday situations are structured- sometimes deliberately-to encourage cooperation between large numbers of people while others encourage an every-man-for-himself approach that game theorists call "defections." When every-man-for-himself strategies don't achieve the big, expensive, complex needs of society, civilization demands a way to change the game from one that encourages defections to one that encourages cooperation or you end up with stone age tribalism or worse.
He probably didn't intend to, but when Henry Payne, president of a West Virginia engineering firm, attacked both the cleanliness and the practicality of electric cars in his May 16 commentary in Charleston's The State Journal, he provided readers with a perfect example of why free market forces alone will not free us from our dangerous dependence on foreign oil until all the oil and coal are gone. Payne, whose company designs electric controls, argues against widespread deployment of electric cars on the grounds that they are not "green" since the people who would re-charge them each night are probably getting their electricity from a dirty coal-fired power plant, and that electric cars are not practical because the current coal-based power grid can't produce enough electricity to recharge "Mickey Mouse electric cars" without causing all the lights to "go dim-just like their owners."
I'm not going to argue with an engineer about whether or not the coal-based American power grid could recharge millions of electric cars, but I will point out that Payne's arguments against electric cars can't hold a charge if our elected officials find creative ways to encourage and incent the construction of new homes with, say, solar panels and electric car docking stations built right in. The free, clean solar energy captured during daylight hours would be stored and used to re-charge the electric car when it returns to the garage that evening.
Suppose local, state and national elected officials found creative ways to incent land developers and building contractors to build entire office parks and subdivisions that come pre-wired to provide some or most of their electrical needs from free, clean, off-the-grid solar, wind and water sources. No, your local coal-fired electricity monopoly wouldn't like it because if people begin to think too much about where their electricity comes from they may buy less coal-fired electricity. Building contractors and realtors wouldn't like it because, under the current government-on-the-sidelines, status quo game, free market forces encourage individual players to defect from what's best for society and the world and look only to the short-term interests of their individual pocketbooks. But creative, visionary government management of our long-term societal energy needs can find ways to encourage builders and developers to create off-the-grid homes and offices in a way that doesn't put them at a pricing disadvantage against on-the-grid, inside-the-box competitors.
Visionary leaders like Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry can lead the way. Though he hasn't "sold" it very well yet, Newberry's STEM scholarship plan demonstrates his understanding of the role government must play in the management of problems that cannot be solved by the free market, every man for himself, status quo game we're all playing right now. No abridgement of individual freedoms need be involved. Just as Mayor Newberry's scholarship proposal doesn't prevent anyone from majoring in English, Communications or Political Science instead of one of the desired STEM majors, a game changing, effective energy plan need not punish inside-the-box thinkers.
Suppose, for example, Jim Newberry wanted to lead the way and show other mayors and elected officials how they can help nudge America away from its current pay-any-price at the pump, fight-any-war game toward a game that moves us toward oil independence. Do you suppose he could find a way to reward building contractors and land developers to build some alternative energy sources-maybe some wind, water and solar-powered electric car docking stations-into new office parks and subdivisions? Of course he could. The question is, would Council help him.
They will if they understand that taxpayers don't need elected officials who can write balanced budgets and spend within their means. If that's all we needed, why not just outsource government to CPA firms? No, what taxpayers need-what we really pay elected officials for-is to design the game of civilized life in such a way that our cities, states and nation get the strategic, big, complex, expensive improvements that free-market forces alone will never produce.
Let's review. America needs to quit putting oil money into the hands of foreign enemies who want to kill us. America cannot achieve oil independence while most of our cars run on gasoline. Oil-thirsty nations will fight over oil like hungry dogs fight over a pork chop.
Without creative, game changing government involvement, America will get most of its electricity from coal and run most of its cars on oil until the last Appalachian mountaintop has been removed and the last military vehicle runs out of the gasoline its driver is about to die for.