Questionable:  I still don't see plug-ins becoming important for quite a while, unfortunately, putting them in the category of "Real Soon Now".  According to Joe's article about plug-ins, he's got his hopes on a non-auto company using ultracapacitors that haven't been mass produced yet.  Also, flexfuel?  I don't know why he thought that was a good idea.

And what is a low carbon fuel?

Also, just giving targets for carbon emissions doesn't mean much unless the means are specified.

Good: The Federal Government should "green" its buildings and vehicles.  This is very important.
Also, unfortunately, the Feds probably need to shovel bucket loads of money, as Obama has called for, so that Detroit can convert to electric vehicles

And of course the ugly: the ccs, expanding nuclear.

If we implemented both candidates plans with full funding it would not come close to the needed action.

We need a fully integrated energy plan for the future.  It is like a jigsaw puzzle with many interacting pieces. The candidates pick out one piece from the opponent's plan and say, "This won't solve our energy problem by itself, so there is no point in doing this". That argument could be applied to every piece of the puzzle. The problem is too serious to be playing such games.

There are 3 billion people around the world who want to join the middle class. If the U.S. could reduce its emissions to zero instantly, the savings would be gobbled up by the developing world. Conservation will not solve the worlds energy problem.

The most important goal for the U.S. is to use our technical capacity to develop low emission energy sources that are less expensive than fossil fuel. People across the world will switch to the new less expensive sources quickly and voluntarily, not kicking and screaming.

Energy is so important to the human race that we must implement a plan that does not have failure as an option.  

SHORT TERM STRATEGY

1     Drill, drill, drill.  Drill in Alaska, drill offshore, drill wherever we have oil and gas. Each $10 per barrel that oil goes up costs Americans another $80 billion per year. Each 1 cent per kWh that electricity goes up costs Americans another $40 billion per year.

We need fuel to keep our economy going so that we can afford to develop the new technologies that the world needs.

2     Level the playing field so that we are forced to pay the true cost of energy from each source.  Eliminate all energy subsidies.

When you take a load of trash to the city landfill you pay a fee per pound of trash.  Humans have been using the atmosphere as a free waste dump since we gained control of fire. Atmospheric dumping of hazardous material is producing severe adverse effects on human health and global climate. We should charge an atmospheric dumping fee equal to the best estimate of the cost of damage done by the toxic waste being injected into our atmosphere. Low emission technologies will become more competitive on a level playing field.

3     Conservation is a strategy that is being implemented already due to rising energy costs, and it will increase. Improving insulation and using more efficient appliances make good sense.

Conservation sometimes comes at a high cost. For example sales of motorcycles and mopeds are exploding.  The motorcycle fatality rate per mile is seven times higher than for cars.  The fatality rate for bicycles is seven times higher than motorcycles. Econobox cars are less survivable in accidents than large cars built with the same level of technology.

Higher electricity prices mean less security lighting.  There'll be more muggings and rapes on college campuses and parking lots.  Homes will be colder in winter and hotter in summer.  More people on limited income will have to choose between paying for food, medicine or utility bills.

The cost of conservation includes increased human suffering and death. The sooner we develop clean safe abundant sources of inexpensive energy, the sooner we can minimize these costs.

INTERMEDIATE TERM STRATEGY

Use proven technology to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

1     Accelerate the mainstreaming of emerging technologies including hybrid, all electric and fuel cell vehicles.

 2    Mass produce floating nuclear power plants to increase our supply of clean emissions free energy electricity.  A company called Offshore Power Systems built a facility to do that in Florida during the seventies, but it was never put into production due to a downturn in the economy that stalled growth and canceled orders.

3      Convert most stationary application of natural gas to electricity. Use our natural gas supply to displace imported oil.  Automakers can convert from gasoline to natural gas quickly and cheaply.

LONG TERM STRATEGY

1     Increase R&D for energy by more than a factor of ten to $100 billion per year, 90 cents per day for each of us. Push every technology as hard as possible, build prototypes of everything as it becomes possible and publish the performance data.

When someone says R&D most people only hear Research. In truth Development is the really expensive part, and the U.S. has done very little of that in recent decades.

Build intermediate scale plants of all promising technologies, advanced nuclear, cellulosic biofuel, solar power, geothermal, coal with full sequestration. For those technologies that are successful in medium scale we should built at least one full scale commercial size plant.

We have yet to build a fully sequestered coal plant after years of talk. We need to try even if the first plant is a failure.

There are dozens of ways to split a uranium atom. What are the odds that a steroidal submarine reactor is the best? There are huge improvements to be made in nuclear power plant design and construction, yet we have not built a new experimental reactor since 1973.

2     Spaceship earth is less than 8,000 miles in diameter and covered largely by water. With the appropriate use of technology it could be a near paradise for 500 million to 1 billion people, without putting too much stress on the other species that share this planet, but we are over 6 billion, headed for 10 billion, with two thirds living in poverty.

Earth can never be paradise for 10 billion people, unless your idea of paradise is sitting in an air conditioned high rise apartment building, surfing the internet, eating insect pate. It will take a massive infusion of technology to provide a comfortable life for all those people while preserving whatever is left of the environment.

Population has to be on the table in any serious discussion of the future. The U.S. population has more than doubled since WW II. Had we stabilized it at that level we would have abundant inexpensive energy, water and food supplies.

CONCLUSION

The road of progress is paved with stones of failure. By spending 90 cents per person per day to push every technology as fast as possible, the best technologies and breakthroughs, whatever they are, will emerge as leaders in the shortest possible time. 95% of that money will probably be wasted on unsuccessful technology, but that is cheap insurance to assure that we get the best solution. Think of it as a life insurance premium for the human race. Relying on a bunch of gray haired law school graduates in Washington to cherry pick technology is a formula for disaster.

The new technologies will tend to suppress rising energy costs. I believe the savings could surpass the annual R&D cost within 15 - 20 years, and save over $2,000 per year per person within 30 years, not to mention a large improvement in the environment and quality of life with this approach. 100 years from now energy will be cheap, clean and abundant.

A big R&D push will provide the U.S. with new products that are highly desirable all over the world, providing Americans with high paying manufacturing jobs and products to sell overseas to eliminate our trade deficit and strengthen the dollar.

We have wasted the last 30 years, we need to start implementing this solution now!

"...1 million PHEVs by 2015 is completely unrealistic."

Could they build a million of these?  Yep, no doubt.  Rear wheel plugin electric, front wheel regular gas engine.  

Why couldn't Detroit build a million like this, with american front wheel drive cars, converted with the plugin rear drive.  They can with Obama's plan.  

Government federal, state, and local and big business could order a million of them from GM, Ford, and chrysler.   just like jeeps, tanks, trucks, planes were built for WW2 victory.  let's win this time around, without war, just manufacturing power.  Renewable/conservation energy mass production, trust american workers like the country did in WW2.

What's good for american families is good for america, and that will be good for GM and the others.  Obama reverses the old corporatist saw,  "What's good for GM, is good for america."

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/11/12 ...

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin