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Why Is There No National Energy Policy?
There is no national energy policy because there is no public will for one. Sure, blame Congress or President Bush or the oil companies, but we are the problem. We, meaning you, me and others. Part of the reason for our relative insouciance is that life remains okay.
For example, European gasoline prices can be almost triple ours. France is just below $10/gallon, Norway just above and Germany is already up to $11.50. As would be expected, protests are growing. Soon, there could be major demonstrations, if not uncontrolled rioting. You can, of course, move to Venezuela. Simple Solutions for Planet Earth listed gasoline at 12 cents / gallon last year. Today, gasoline still costs 12 cents / gallon there. But do you really want to relocate to that part of the world just for gasoline?
By the way, ten years ago, the price of crude oil was $11.91/barrel, less than one-tenth the cost today. Has something monumental occurred? Ah... yes, although my response should have been more hysterical.
When you come down to it, we have our priorities all wrong, and do nothing about righting this nonsense. For example, each NASA space shot is said to cost about a billion dollars. This is more than the annual Department of Energy renewable energy budget.
Each B-2 Stealth bomber sells for one billion dollars... no, make that $2 billion, including all development costs. A B-2 weighs 2.3 million troy ounces, which, if made of pure gold, would then have a value of, yes, about $2 billion. Of course, it won't fly, but want more?
The U.S. Navy will outlay $160 million/year to man each Nimitz class aircraft carrier, and when the George Bush is christened (no joke, but named for POTUS #41, H.W.) this year, there will be ten of them. The President George W. Bush solar energy budget request is about half what it will cost to operate one nuclear carrier! And we have ten of them... with no major enemy today, and none clearly on the horizon for the next generation or more.
The American public readily accepts this absurdity. Where are the priorities? What can you do about this? You can start by reading those two Simple Solutions books.
The world needs to spend not billions, but trillions, of dollars over the next few years to minimize the crunch of Peak Oil and Global Warming (PO/GW). Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has a new book entitled, The Three Trillion Dollar War, reporting on the true cost of the Middle East war. The PO/GW 10% solution recommended to POTUS #44 in my May 29th post only provided the global federal government investment. Most of the actual outlay will need to come from industry. But, without the force of law or appropriate spur from government, we have seen that corporations are loath to move into unexplored investment areas, as, for example, sustainable resources, or the remediation of global warming.
So with crude oil settling in the range of $126/barrel (which is exactly $3/gallon), are we now, finally, soon to get a national energy policy? No. Two presidential candidates (John McCain and Hillary Clinton) have actually proposed eliminating the 18.4¢/gallon (24.4¢/gal for diesel) tax during the three summer months to win some votes. Barack Obama said it was a gimmick and Thomas Friedman of The New York Times entitled his editorial: "Dumb as We Wanna Be." Friedman said, in reference to McCain and Clinton, "the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away."
What's the reality? First of all, if this tax is dropped for the summer, the consumer would be saving 5% -- 5% -- on their gas bill. This should be a non-issue! Gasoline increases this amount each week, sometimes, if not more.
How much money are we talking about? Actually, something in the range of $10 billion. Wow, that's a lot. The U.S. Department of Energy spent less than this amount for renewable energy R&D,cumulative, over the past decade.
Well, Exxon, during this past quarter, made a profit of $10.9 billion, which Wall Street found disappointing. Chevron's profits only amounted to $5.2 billion, the second best quarter in their 132 year history. (How long has oil been around, anyway? Well Chevron first struck oil in California in 1876. Drake drilled for his Pennsylvania petroleum in 1859.) Remember, these profits are only for January, February and March of 2008.
Cutting the gas tax is going in the wrong direction. We need to add a dollar/gallon and apply this revenue to developing sustainable options. That would provide about $150 billion each year, which would be just the complement to the 10% solution suggested in my "Well, Barack, We Have A Problem..." National energy policy? Why bother? A dollar/gallon investment tax on gasoline, the 10% solution and a 10 cents / pound carbon dioxide tax are all we need. Carbon tax? Stay tuned.
Patrick Takahashi is a retired professor of engineering and director emeritus of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii. He helped draft original legislation on hydrogen, ocean energy and wind power when he worked for the U.S. Senate more than a quarter century ago.
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I wonder why we do not request more cars with Diesel engines.
Those cars consume 30% to 35% less oil than gasoline engine powered cars.
Modern Diesel cars are even clean and comply with the emission regulations in California.
in Europe the market share for Diesel cars is about 50%.
What is the roadblock here and why is Diesel more expensive than gasoline?
Go now to the HuffPo Green Section and witness for yourself the $45 billion requirement the International Energy Agency says will be need to do something about Global Warming. I added the following comment:
What was I thinking? In my two HuffPo blogs over the past week, I suggested a trivial trillion dollar program to combat Peak Oil and Global Warming. In one of them, I provide a clue to presidential candidate Obama to also end wars forever as a co-product legacy. Then I read where the International Energy Agency reported on a $45 trillion requirement. I fear that even $45 trillion, actually, will not be sufficient. But we are now talking real money.
Oh, oil hit a record high today of $138/barrel.
We have a national energy policy. Its called Iraq. We didn't elect these ass holes. They stole the elections in 2000 and 2004. We DID elect a Democratic majority in congress, finally, but they refuse to act. How would you suggest we organize to change things when we are opposed by our own government. Do I need to point out that the government has a monopoly on violence? Do you recommend a national strike? An armed rebellion?
I'm not exactly Gandhi, but no, violence, strikes and armed rebellion would only add to the misery. Unfortunately, I truly don't have an answer to your question. I am hoping that the concept called The Huffington Post can be an important part of the solution. The capability for instant feedback and dissemination should be powerful enough to trigger a profound public reaction. Maybe someone out there in the etherworld can come to our rescue. Aloha.
Good thing we have the stick of $4 gas, otherwise most Americans would still be oblivious about the energy realities we face.
The Republicans can only come up with one answer to our problems, as George Will so ineloquently wrote yesterday in his syndicated column: drill in ANWR.
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2008/06/05/Will05.ART_ART_06-05-08_A11_FVADD8B.html?sid=101
Funny, he never once told what the acronym stood for, never even mentioned the word Alaska, only that it has enough oil to drive our current number of cars for four years. Great, 4 years. So we ruin an ecosystyem to drive our inefficient cars for 4, maybe even 10 or 20 years. What then?
Joke if you will, but 20 years from now we will be kicking ourselves for not electing Gore.
Allowing Gore to walk away from his elected office, you mean....and, not paying more attention to President Jimmy Carter.
Carter, the butt of many a joke for his solar panels and thermostat controls. Now who looks ridiculous? Perhaps we didn't deserve either Gore or Carter.
BY THE WAY, YOU ALL SHOULD RE-LOOK AT MY VERY FIRST POST IN THE HUFFINGTON POST ENTITLED: "WELL, BARACK, WE HAVE A PROBLEM..." Not only do I suggest how he might solve the Peak Oil and Global Warming problem...but in doing so, perhaps also ending wars forever. Yeah, ridiculous, but so were Columbus, Galileo and those other maniacs in our past.
Maybe one of you reading this comment might have a direct link to the Obama campaign. Bring this May 29, 2008 blog to their attention. Please.
Very educational, and yet really we all know a lot of this. The reason there is no national energy policy? Americans are soft, both physically and mentally. We've gotten used to cheap food, fuel, cheap everything; and sacrificing nothing in return. We are not the same country we were 50 or 60 years ago. Although many social policies have changed for the better, the way we live and how the country runs have definitely changed for the worse. We need to suck it up and make some changes, Americans HATE change. It's time to start thinking further than next month, and start thinking of our children and grandchildren. We need to start thinking (and planning) 50 or 100 years out. The legacy we are leaving is pathetic, and George W. Bush is the perfect Presidental example of where we have gone wrong.
Bull, sir.
I do not accept, Mr Takahashi, that the failure for an effective and sane energy policy lies with the citizens. It is true that it becomes our responsibility to call to task those officials whom we entrusted with the responsbility, but let us not ignore/forgive those officials for failing to perform those tasks with which they were entrusted.
The blame is with them.
But it IS now our duty to hold them accountable.
We do have an energy policy. Remeber when Dick Cheney had secret meetings? Now the energy policy has been made cystal clear. The mantra of big oil has always been: "Fuck em, if they don't like the price then let them freeze in the dark.
Another part of the Cheney, et al, energy policy is to blame high food prices on methanol production so that we begin to doubt the supporting of alternatives to the burning petroleum. Do not be fooled again.
johnlocke23
Yes, we can keep blaming Bush, the Congress and oil companies, but this has been going on forever, and, because we have not held them accountable, WE have failed. There has been no national will with regards to a sane national energy policy. Yes, I blame myself, and you and others. I sincerely hope this riles you and the rest of the world sufficiently that a seed has been planted to begin to make that desired change.
By the way, The Huffington Post could well be a crucial part of the process, as there can now be immediate feedback, leading, I hope, to a groundswell of action in specific areas, such as Peak Oil and Global Warming.
Aloha.
Why is there no national energy policy?
Same reason there's next to no multi-modal local, regional, or national public transportation, no net-metering, no electric cars, no rational approach to health care, no oversight of quality food and drugs, and next to no regard for preserving the tiny remnants of nature, upon which our existence ultimately depends.
None of the above puts maximum dollars in multi-national corporate pockets, that's why. Furthermore, those are long-term economic interests, and concerns of the common good, about assets which though they are essential, by their nature cannot be individually owned, bought, and sold. They can and are being stolen, though. Stolen from me, you, and our descendants.
Until we do some serious muckraking and trust-busting and kick the K Street lobbyist cabal TO THE CURB, no matter what the outcome of the 08 elections, we can count on our energy policy being just the same as it is today: written by the multi-national oil companies.
I am in total agreement...the solutions are simple. But how, exactly, do we go about muckraking, trust-busting and kicking? I initiated this posting to gain a clue on how to carry out the salvation process. After 75 comments, we seem not to be homing in on a rational and optimal pathway. Everyone has his own idea, but no integration and operational plan.
By the way, speaking of personal solutions, my three part national energy policy is redundant. Delete the $1/gallon gasoline tax, for the 10 cents / pound carbon dioxide tax automatically raises the gas price by $2/gallon (and coal-fired electricity by 8 cents/kWh). The 10% solution, for those who have not kept up with this posting, is the suggestion I made to POTUS #44 Obama (see my HuffPo article on "Well, Barack, We Have a Problem...") to reduce our national defense budget by 10% each year so that the "saved" funds can be applied to minimizing the agony to come from Peal Oil and Global Warming. I have just about given up the prospect of actually preventing the global economic disaster predicted by many.
Don't give up, Mr.T! Never give up!
You're doing something about it right now, helping spark discussion. Thank you, and thank everyone who blogs and posts comments about this and other serious matters going on right now. Change has to start somewhere.
I've thought about this a long time (like, 7+ years) , and have come to the conclusion that the single most important, underlying change we need to make, that is a root cause (at least short-term) of all the other serious problems, is the lopsided degree of corporate influence on government.
Of course, at this point, lopsided is an understatement. Public policy has devolved to not what different voting constituencies want, but more like a war between corporations. The people's best interests don't come even a distant second. They don't count at all! Campaigns, elections, voting your guy or gal into office doesn't seem to make much difference, because the big shots call the shots once they're in Washington.
So, it's serious, sweeping campaign finance reform. Now. Cut the heart out of the beast, and the brain and body and claws and fangs all die.
Then, efforts to have an energy policy, an environmental policy, education reform, privacy and habeus corpus returns can all come to fruition and not die on the vine, killed by the craven corporate shills on K Street .
The real question is, can we achieve that simply via casting our votes for "change"? Is voting enough?
Before there can be a solution, there needs to be a problem. Not a problem that just you or I see, but a problem that a majority of the electorate sees.
Our American lifestyle is built around the notion of cushioning us from all problems that might bother a majority. That's why it is always those most in need who end up getting the short end of the stick. When a majority of people are "the most in need," we have a problem.
The most obvious cushions are the mass media and their talented liars (opps, sorry, I mean) actors. Education is not cool. Fake gun play by actors is cool.
But the biggest cushion ever thrown at us has been the way Bush has run the invasion of Iraq. No draft. No taxes. No sacrifices, except by those who thought the military reserve was money in the bank. Our leaders think we are fools, and they are right.
The proposal for a gasoline tax reminds that time after time, whenever that tax was on the ballot, the oil barons would crank up the printing press and hire the actors to tell us how the addition of 10 cents to develop alternatives, at a time when gasoline was 50 cents/gallon, would be an economic disaster. And voters bought the oil barons' arguments every time. But putting the biggest profits in history into the pockets of oil investors is not an economic disaster? "What fools these mortals be."
What's truly sad and a little scary is McCain, Clinton and Obama (my apologies to the cult) have no real energy policy and will likely continue putting food into our gas tanks despite food shortages and high prices.
and what are we, the people, doing about this. We complain but do nothing! Everyone pick up
a pencil and write to congress. Force them to change our laws and forbid lobbyists. Lobbyists
have money and money talks. It is the root of all evil.
I would say that more exploration and drilling would be a good first step. Cutting back on usage would be another realistic goal.
You think high prices are the sole fault of lobbyists?
actually, that food you speak of is going to feed livestock of the factory farming industry.... not people or gas tanks. also, ethanol was pushed by the bush admin, even though experts in the area told him that it would cost more to make and use more resources than other alternatives... i think the WH picked ethanol so they could turn around later and say "see, going green is to expensive. forget about it!"
Are you the last person on Earth that doesn't know we are making Ethanol from corn?
So....Obama and McCain have plans to cut Ethanol use and actually have a real energy policy that doesn't involve just raising gas mileage in autos 10 years from now?
When discussing the price of oil 10 years ago versus today it is important to remember several things. Much of Asia was in a recession during the 1990's and recessions cut oil usage. China actually exported oil in the 90's compared to the massive amounts of imports required today to fuel their double digit growth. India is putting more and more cars on the road today vs. 10 years ago. China and India both are growing their middle class and this includes more auto usage.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were pumping every gallon they could to help pay for the 1991 Gulf War and were actually grateful and cooperative then.
Mexico had a currency crisis in the 1990's. This cheapened their oil. Mexico has been throwing away it's oil money for years instead of putting needed funds into it's oil infrastructure.
American SUV's.
Comparing the price of oil in the 1990's to today's prices is pretty simplistic. There are dozens of reason why the price is high
I blame Bush for taking the boogeyman away from the Middle East. Sadamn terrified the Saudi's and the Iranians. Both countries sold all of the oil they could to pay for new weapons. The Saudi's relied on our good will to keep Sadamn in check (ditto for Kuwait).
I also blame the Dems for refusing to allow more drilling in the US when demand increases. Idiots.
oil is a finite resource. there is no proof that oil wells within us borders are anywhere near the size of those in the middle east. and with our consumption we would need at least that size. the point is, oil will run out eventually. we are approaching peak oil as we speak. we should come up with other ways to power the things we need BEFORE we start running out of oil. at that point its crunch time, and almost too late.
You are correct that we don't have the oil reserves of the Middle East. We haven't been self sufficient in oil production for over a generation yet the price was lower.
We need to increase supply while looking for alternatives.
We have viable alternatives. Read up on Shale Oil. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal and this can be made into oil if the price is high enough. It became cost effective when oil broke $80 per barrel. The problem is you create CO2 and the enviromentalists would rather have us with a destroyed economy instead of being sefl sufficient.
1will
Your problem is you have to explain why it is idiotic to drill American oil and sell it in 2000 for $25 a barrel when you could wait 8 years and get $125 a barrel.
Now let's see, based on Anwar production of :
1 million barrels a day at an additional $100 per barrel = $100 M per day or
$36,500,000,000 per year. that is $36.5 billion per year
And 1 million barrels a day would not dent the price of oil considering we consume 25 million barrels a day.
I'm not against some increased drilling for oil but I'd worry about a strategy that just pumps all the remaining oil in America to make the Hummer owners happy for 10-20 years. what do we do when it's all gone?
Is oil the only way to produce energy? The conservative simpletons would have us think so. their golf carts don't run on oil though.
The Bush family loves taking their mid east friends for rides in their golf carts. ("Hey, look, we don't really need your oil, but we're in the same business right? Heh, heh)
We can drill in places other than ANWR although I do believe we should be producing more from our Alaskan oil reserves.
There is oil off of the coast of CA and there is more in the Gulf Of Mexico.
We do not have to produce enough oil to be self sufficient but we can help ease the supply problem.
We were not self sufficient during Bush (41's) term in office and Clinton left us using about 60% foriegn oil. It is doubtful we will ever be free from importing oil but when you increase supply the price comes down.
I can also talk about national security since a large part of our oil comes from people that hate us. It takes about 10 years to get an oil field producing so it would be good to have that capacity should the tap ever be turned off again.
It's a good thing the Democrats don't want to drill for more American oil in ANWR or off of the Continental Shelf. Imagine how high oil would be if we increased supply a few million barrels per day and weren't entirely reliant on American hating dictators.
Tsk. You really should do a bit of basic research before swallowing GOP hooks and lines ... much less the sinkers.
1. The projected oil reserves in the ANWR are a drop in the bucket and come nowhere close to making us energy independent.
2. Unrestrained petroleum combustion is not the answer. You can continue to ignore the externalities for as long as you want, but the $ cost of petro-fuels do not represent the total costs to our society. The piper *will* be paid, eventually.
3, Petroleum is a finite fuel source. "Digging new holes" is not the answer.
4. Petroleum is valuable in a variety of products: plastics, fertilizers, etc. It really is too valuable to be wasting by burning it as fuel.
5. Continual sucking at the teat of Big Oil tends to make us complacent about the need to search for alternate energy sources. For example, you want true energy independence? You want to really goose your Economy with truly cheap energy? Put the research into making solar more efficient and you can tap into a limitless virtually FREE energy source ... costing only the one-time capture/ conversion mechanism. Make that efficient and cheap enough, and you could have a capitalist wet dream ... without the negatives to society. That also frees you from OPEC.
Instead of dutifully parroting rightwing objections, look into actual issues and you'll be surprised to find you can get everything you want AND never have to compromise your rightwing ideological "principles."
Instead of blindly defending the Democrats for helping to make us dependent on those that hate us perhaps you should realize a few things.
1. We don't have to be self sufficient in oil. We do have to increase the supply somewhat to control prices. Then there is the national security issue. We are now hostage to world oil prices and Opec controls that price at their leisure. Most Middle Eastern countries do not produce beef, wheat or Dell Computers. They export oil. There is a limit to how long they can turn off the tap and still pay off their own people and radical Mullahs.
2. So since oil is a finite fuel source we should just leave ours in the ground while there are shortages.
3. Since we need alternatives tomorrow we should not use any of our oil today?
4. ANWR is not the only place in America where there is oil. It sounds nice to pretend that is the sole source but that's misinformation. There is oil off of the coast of CA that we can't touch and we could sink more wells in the gulf. Everyone else (including the Chinese) is.
I agree, more dollars need to be spent on renewable energies. As you note, we spend unbelievable amounts on defense and space programs. But, in the meantime, until we can get some money allocated for research and implementations, why can't there be investigations into more down to earth technologies? For example:
1. There was a gentleman in Atlanta who was skilled in the cryogenics field. As an aside, he rebuilt an engine in an old car, and altered the molecular structure of the moving parts in the car by cryogenically hardening the parts. He claimed huge amounts of fuel mileage increases due to reduced friction. Supposedly, race car teams were checking into it.
2. The man in the Sarasota/Bradenton Florida area who was running a car on Brown's gas, using a fuel cell he designed himself originally for welding. Impossible? Not really.
Those are but two instances. There are supposedly many more, but unless we investigate, we will never know. Perhaps there are some "eurekas" out there but if we dismiss them out of hand, we do ourselves a great disservice.
Dear Commenters:
With regards to the lack of a national energy policy, one day after my posting, there were more than 50 responses. Let me assess the input:
1. Most still blame decision-makers and companies.
2. Many think the problem can't be solved.
3. There is a hodge-podge of what can be done, but no systematic solution.
There has got to be a better solution, and I'll try again.
P.S. I'm participating in an ocean conference, and we today had a chance to interact with NASA's Jim Hansen of global warming fame. He advanced a concept to invoke a serious carbon tax, with all revenues somehow directly returning to your bank account. He thinks that the people are smarter than our government in making the necessary decisions. A point which came up is that if we "cap and trade" carbon dioxide credits, these funds will eventually find their way out of our local economy, and into that of developing countries. Now, this might not be all that bad, for this would be like a form of foreign aid to save the environment, but Dr. Hansen's idea of minimizing Federal control and maximizing individual determinism is worthy of debate.
The energy problem can be separated into two distinct categories, the energy used in transportation and everything else. The US consumes 150 billion gallons of gasoline per year. That's half of the oil consumed by the US. Most of this is consumed in passenger vehicles. It also accounts for 500 billion dollars of the trade deficit. This is an economic, security, energy and environmental disaster. No other segment of the energy equation is as dire. Some thoughts on how to proceed.
Tax gasoline @ $2.00 per gallon; SEQUSETERING THE PROCEEDS from the general fund and providing tax credits for solar and wind power to both individuals and businesses from these monies. Adopt Nationwide net metering and give tax rebates for the purchase of American made plug in Hybrids. The intrinsic advantages of point of use generation from solar panels and small wind turbines is it does not require additional infrastructure (electric grid) to use. The consumer gets the electricity from his roof, not 100 miles away at a coal fired generator. Given the quantity of gasoline now used this would provide 300 billion dollars. Solar panels now cost about $5 per watt. A 50 % tax credit would yield 120 billion watts that could be brought online each year. That's 120 million kilowatts of new capacity per year or the capacity or 12 Hoover dams. Assuming that both gasoline consumption and the price of solar panels would go down, this would be self sustaining for the near term.
QED
Ole,
It is amazing me too, how we can be shipping $3 per gallon overseas and the Republican administration is done nothing but hold hands with the Saudis. It really is $500 billion a year and predictions are that this is about to double($100/barrel to $200/barrel). A $2 per gallon tax on gas is going to seem trivial in a couple of years.
Here is a link to the carbontax.org. There is a link on the page to the Charles Komanoff spreadsheet for carbon tax analysis. Has some good numbers for computing tax revenue across all fossil fuels.
www.carbontax.org/issues/implementing-carbon-taxes/
Regards,
I agree wholeheartedly with your approach because it focuses on PRODUCING CLEAN ENERGY rather than putting the government in the business of producing CO2 as a carbon tax would do. Tax schemes are rarely a "solution" and they do tend to have a distorting effect which sometimes cannot be predicted.
I have always been in favor of modestly higher gas prices via a tax because I think we always wasted too much gas.
However, America, and the planet by extention, has always found the best solutions through technology. We need to find a way of utilizing coal without creating pollution but it is up to our government to fund that research just as it must fund research in geo thermal, wind, tide, solar, bio mass.
Lastly we need to use new math and realize that government subsidies for solar, wind, etc., actually retun money to the economy as a whole. When the state subsidizes your hybrid, it means we import less oil which means the dollar gets stronger and you take that stronger dollar to Wal Mart and take more goods home. A corporation looking at the math of selling Hybrids can't make that math redound to their benefit so they don't produce hybrids. We must therefore have enough intelligence to call on our government to subsidize clean DOMESTIC energy within reason.
lastly, none of this has any meaning if China continues its dirity coal fired utility expansion and right now they have no intention of stopping.
Ole, just as we have certain building regulations for new housing, or renovation, we should have legislation that, if not requiring it, at least rewards the builder for the use of solar electric and water on any new home. And the idea of neighborhood electric generating systems, much like our neighborhood water district and well, has come. If companies would begin aggressively advertising systems into which 100-200 homes could hook into and form their own "electric company," the drain on our oil usage for heating, especially in the New England area and oil fired electric plants would be cut drastically and the impact could be immediate.
Of course, i think the first order of business is investigation of futures market speculation and windfall profits. All money in the forms of overcharges and fines to be applied directly to your research programs!
The carbon or carbon dioxide tax with rebates that Dr. Hansen is proposing seems to have some simple and useful characteristics. One of the carbon dioxide tax worksheets I have reviewed showed that the US is producing about 12 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide per year from all fossil fuels.
12 trillion pounds is a lot of carbon dioxide! At a nickel a pound(100 per ton of C02) would bring in $600 billion. Flat rebate of just half of this, direct to bank accounts of 130 million households, would be $2100 every year per household.
However we do have a $500 billion per year deficit. Seems like we may have to go higher than a nickel per pound of carbon dioxide(10 cents?) if we are going to maintain a flat rebate and have any hope of balancing the budget.
Well, I have long been proposing a 10 cent / pound carbon dioxide tax, so we seem to be in agreement here. This means a gasoline pump price increase of $2/gallon and a coal-fired powerplant electricity cost increase of 8 cents/kWh, so this might be a tad Draconian.
Battery Powered cars that charge from a regular 110 outlet - why not?
We already have adopted battery packs for power tools en masse - they are very popular - a car/truck is just another tool waiting to be refit for use with batteries.
A national power grid supplied by many different methods of energy production. Solar Thermal out in the Mohave Desert (or anywhere it is sunny) and Windmills in Texas (or really anywhere it is windy).
Net metering & for anyone who wants to set up their own small scale solar and wind electrical generation capability on their property - why not?
If enough people started reducing the amount of grid power they consume by generating some of their own it would benefit everyone - not just the person who gets to see their utility bills plummet.
Encourage the adoption of Geothermal heat pumps for new homes & commercial buildings + effective insulation = lower energy requirements/costs for heating & cooling year round.
There are ways to get out of the fossil fuel insanity death spiral and it doesn't mean you have to grow a beard and start wearing sandals - you just have to use your brain and find the solutions that make financial sense - and stop listening to idiots who pretend either that the problem cant be solved/doesn't exist/ or else fall victim to the limits of their puny imaginations and vulnerability to big oil propaganda.
I did indeed check into getting my own windmill. For my home, which is 2000 sf it would take
one that costs $ 24,000. At my age, it is not feasible to make it economical. The prices have to
come down somehow. Plus, the inventors of such things over the past have been surpressed
by the government for the very reason of making money, like hedge funds!
WMK -
I live in Florida and the first thing builders do when they build is cut down all the trees because from their point of view it will make the building cheaper to build. Unfortunately, the loss of the shade from the tree, especially in Florida, means a HUGE increase in the air conditioning bill.
there is no building standard in Florida which limits contractors to how much window space they can have facing south, for example. I know people will say this limits their freedom but I would limit such restrictions to multi dwelling projects and I'll bet it wouldn't even cost the contractors a cent to place big picture windows on the North instead of the South, right? Surely they can configure their projects geographically to limit use of A/C! Presently there is no incentive for them to do so.
Renewable energies, alternative fuels, hydroelectric, wind power, etc., will not come to fruition unless and until they are controlled part and parcel by the big oil companies in control now. When they gain control, then they will push these plans. Either way, consumers will lose.
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Posted June 2, 2008 | 11:31 AM (EST)