Kurt Ullman wrote:

In article ,
"Pete C." wrote:

We certainly won't get there with the status quo. Something like an
executive order that we'll be energy independent in 5 years with the
weight to quash all the NIMBY and Eco-Loon attempts to prevent it.

Good luck. Little of that would be constitutionally valid to overturn
as an EO since it is based on laws passed by Congress, at the minimum
bringing up sepatation of powers.

Well, since something like that will never happen, the exact logistics
don't really matter.



What I want to see is a comprehensive push starting with new nukes to
allow the shutdown of the coal and NG plants and stop all that
pollution, provide cheap electricity for electric and plug in hybrid
cars and electric commuter rail and busses and home heating and cooling.
Which brings up the rather creative accounting for "clean" electric
cars where they look at tailpipe admissions and studiously ignore the
extra electricity that has to be generated.

But I digress (g)

On my various business visits to San Francisco, I've note the fraudulent
claim of "Zero emissions vehicle" on the electric busses, which are in
fact "Remote emissions vehicles".


Use the freed up US NG and US oil to keep other transportation going
without foreign oil. Improve conservation as much as possible. Get
realistic renewable sources, including distributed solar and wind
generation online (again quashing NIBMY and Eco-Loon nonsense) over a
reasonable period of time so that in 30 years when those nukes are
reaching retirement they can be retires and we can by on entirely
renewables.

I am not all that sanguine about real life solar and wind generation
as a viable major contributor. The solar cells have to too big and wind
generation takes too much space and both are fairly polluting on the
making of the cells or turbines. Might be useful at the margins, but I
am not all that sold for large scale applications.
Although even the marginal stuff would keep the growing part of
the demand at bay, as it were.

This is why I specified "distributed solar" (and wind where applicable),
i.e. panels installed on existing rooftops. Basically something like a
utility supplied and maintained battery less grid tie system. Trying to
do utility scale solar any other way just isn't practical and has huge
environmental impact. Distributed across customer's rooftops it uses no
new space and also greatly extends the service life of the already
overtaxed grid by producing a good portion of the power locally.



Something sensible like that will never happen of course...