The Wall Street Journal asked House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) how he would spend $10 billion of the country's monetary resources. He says it should be spent on clean energy:
A dramatic investment in clean energy would be the most effective check on aggressive petroregimes from Moscow to Tehran. It would be the best long-term solution to global warming. And energy independence is the most effective step we can take for American families staggering under the burden of high gas prices.
That's because the forces that have produced this summer's record prices are not going away. We are facing skyrocketing world demand for an ever-shrinking quantity of oil, and unless Congress figures out a way to amend the laws of supply and demand, that fundamental fact is not going to change. This is a large-scale problem, and it's going to take large-scale solutions.
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Comments
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amazingdrx Posted 1:52 pm
18 Aug 2008
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/15/81427/1883/#co ...
But seriously, what technologies would he invest in and how? That's the hard part.
He better read more. He won't get the big picture just skimming the bloggerel. Get with it Steny, earn your power and privelege.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:06 pm
18 Aug 2008
One out of six (plugin hybrids) right! Fine work.
"...preserve incentives for homeowners to install solar panels, small windmills, geothermal heat pumps, and fuel cells on their property."
What incentives are those? You mean the ones states offer or the omes utilities voluntarily pass on in a few cases? Fuel cells in their homes?
Yep Russia and OPEC are shaking with fear alright! Good work dood.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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MAD MAC Posted 3:57 pm
18 Aug 2008
He's giving examples of ways to reduce our requirements on fossil fuels and all you can do is bash. What is up with the dickheads on the Grist - always attacking everything?
"What incentives are those? You mean the ones states offer or the omes utilities voluntarily pass on in a few cases? Fuel cells in their homes?"
He really should have used the phrase "improve" instead of preserve. STFW? Again, you just like beating the negative drums.
If things begin to come apart as you see with worst case predictions, the people here on the Grist (for the most part) will end up dead first. You can't survive really hard times with a negative outlook.
Victory in Pattani
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amazingdrx Posted 4:09 pm
18 Aug 2008
"dickheads"
One thing on your mind. Don't ask, we won't tell. Hehey.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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sspl01 Posted 4:42 pm
18 Aug 2008
Mack
Iowa Drug Treatment
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Pangolin Posted 6:28 pm
18 Aug 2008
Hydrogen powered vehicles get 1/3 of the generated power to the wheels that battery powered vehicles do. At a substantial cost penalty. Never mind the complete lack of infrastructure.
Plug-in hybrids. These would be great if anybody was producing them. If you can't install it you can't save energy.
New nuclear technology is a joke. Nobody wants untested technology installed in their neighborhood. It's not exactly carbon-neutral as the uranium comes from mines powered by diesel.
Carbon sequestration is completely untested on any commercial scale. It's completely unrealistic for coal plants. It's cheaper to shut the plant down and build windmills instead. The land that coal sits under would produce more energy as concentrated solar thermal or wind power than the coal can produce.
If reducing foreign energy imports was actually a priority....
Mandate and finance the conversion of every building heated by oil furnaces to geoexchange heating (like Al Gore and George Bush have) within five years. This would reduce oil imports and possibly gas prices. Every single install starts saving oil immediately. Conversion of gas heating should happen within ten years like T. Boone Pickens says.
Mandate that all vehicles purchased by state, local or federal governments for on-road use be a PHEV with at least a 20 mile electric range in five years. Provide zero-interest loans to market-rate qualified buyers for these same vehicles. Given a low but useful threshold of battery only range and guaranteed market the vehicles will get built.
Provide feed-in tariffs to distributed solar and wind energy projects sufficient to provide a seven year payback on average system installations in each class.
Reduce the national speed limit to 55 mph (again) and provide incentives for states to enforce this limit effectively.
Eliminate all subsidies for air travel. Tax airline tickets sufficiently to pay for all services provided by the government just like on my phone bill.
Unlike throwing more money down the nuclear power hole the above proposals would save oil, gas, energy and money from day one. Starting in Maine and moving south with a fleet of drilling rigs and geoexchange installers each individual installation would save hundreds to thousands of gallons of oil yearly.
Each properly installed windmill and solar system in coal burning areas would eliminate the need for thousands of tons of coal. Not burning the coal in the first place is much easier than trying to find a place to cram millions of tons of unwanted, poisonous gasses.
Replacing the vehicle fleet with PHEVs would take about 15 years after they were the only vehicles available but a 55 mph speed limit would save gas from the day the signs went up.
It would be nice if somebody actually in government would propose something that would work. When the best energy policies the public is aware of are coming from Paris Hiltion and T. Boone Pickens you know you're in trouble.
Put the Carbon Back
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vakibs Posted 12:36 am
20 Aug 2008
Really, do you know about breeder reactors ? Do you know about generation 4 nuclear reactors ? Do you know about the concept of inherent safety in reactor design ? Do you know that U-238 considered waste is actually nuclear fuel ?
Somebody publishes a report that uranium mining uses diesel (such an obvious fact.. as if this is a revelation) and the antinukes jump onto this.
Do you know how much Uranium has to be mined for the generation of 1 GW of electricity ? Do you even know that we don't need to do mining for several hundred years .. because constructing breeder reactors will just burn the current piles of nuclear waste ?
Do you know the mining requirements for the iron, copper and the million other metals required for the construction of solar panels or wind mills ? Do you have numbers of how much of these metals have to be mined for 1 GW of electricity, and how much CO2 is generated by this mining ?
Do you have relative estimates of the water and land requirements for nuclear vs wind power ?
Nuclear beats all the other modes of electricity generation in all these aspects.
Blind prejudice is the biggest enemy of the future of our humanity, coming second only to blatant greed.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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amazingdrx Posted 5:32 am
20 Aug 2008
"Do you know the mining requirements for the iron, copper and the million other metals required for the construction of solar panels or wind mills ?"
Do you know of any operating breeder reactors that render all waste safe with the "inherent safety" features built in, that have been thoroughly tested by independent scientists working for honest government agencies? That compete on cost with renewables and conservation?
Have you looked at the periodic table lately? What are these "million other metals" of which you speak? Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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vakibs Posted 11:37 pm
20 Aug 2008
Unlike you who just keep hanging onto rigid opinions, I make an effort and do some research on the technology out there.
The Argonne National Laboratory had a working demo of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) which has inherent safety design built in. This reactor has been tested in the scientific community. The funding was cut short abruptly by a fossil-fuel lobbyist, and the scientists were told to shut up .
The aircraft reactor experiment had tested the molten salt idea in the 1960s which is the key for the liquid flouride thermal reactor (LFTR). The funding again disappeared due to lobbyists.
France had an operating breeder reactor at Superphénix which was disrupted by a missile attack by an eco-terrorist group.
India has an advanced breeder program and has a few prototype reactors running. But it doesn't have enough money to build them on a large scale.
.. that have been thoroughly tested by independent scientists working for honest government agencies? That compete on cost with renewables and conservation?
Really, what do you mean by "independent" scientists and "honest" agencies ? who will give these labels - you ? Mr Amory Lovins ? Why should we even care ?
There are a billion documents available for analysis for people who are competent in analyzing them.
Competing on cost : Depends on what you mean by "cost". If you factor in government subsidies and calculate the amount in dollars, you will get an estimate of the cost. Every fool will make his own estimate for his favorite technology, and show that it is cheaper than the rest.
What makes real sense is estimating the environmental cost - the requirements on land, the requirements on mining, the requirements on water ... Again by people who are competent in doing that.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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amazingdrx Posted 7:25 am
21 Aug 2008
You maybe willing to trust the industry withour independent verification, but the public is not. Short of dictatorship forcing nukes in the public, it just won't happen unless real trust is restored.
Be reasonable or not, but if nuxclear advocates are not, nuclear power is already doomed in any comparatively free society with actual property rights for citizens.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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