It's sad to see smart writers like Hiro fall for the "clean coal" will save us mantra. I think India must have a lot of solar potential.  

Also my understanding is coal provides 50% not 20% of U.S. electricity.

Jon: Enjoyed the Mike Davis article. Couldn't find the Grist kudos from the intro, though.

are at the end of Mike Davis' article, written by Tom:[Note for TomDispatch readers: Those of you who are environmentally minded and interested in pursuing such matters further might consider spending some time at the superb website of Grist Magazine and visiting, as well, an interesting and provocative new online magazine/website, Environment 360. Tom]

clean coal, hydrogen, and nuclear -- one is real far away, the other was "Real Soon Now" and is now "Really over now", and the last...well...

As opposed to what is actually available and proven, now, solar, wind, geothermal heat pumps, zero emissions buildings, transit, walkable communities...

Dilip Hiro's book seems to be as non-judgmental as possible, attributing the current upheaval in oil prices to 'normal' fluctuations.

Maybe. But speculators appear to have been the only segment of society which has benefited from the frenzy.  The market has become a gambler's heaven instead of a method to provide funding from the public to any particular venture, with reward commensurate to risk.  

BTW, the 'oil shock' of 1973-74 was caused by a v-p at Exxon in New York who said that he was not going to pay "those Ay-Rabs" in OPEC (who incidentally actually owned the oil) the prices they were asking.  His attitude prompted them to jack up the asking price into then strato
spheric rates, triggering the oil shock.

People in cars lined up at gas stations, waiting for hours for a fill-up.  The auto industry began laying off workers, who cancelled appliance and furniture purchases, starting more lay-offs in those industries, and recession escalated.

The "Market" is actually a very temperamental boss, prone to screaming tantrums, and cannot be relied upon to ever do 'the right thing' preferring to cut its own throat rather than develop a cogent plan of action to maintain stability.

Des Emery

and household solar or wind units

but I keep forgetting

what do we need to do to get those geo-thermal heat pumps built, as a practical matter?

and what, if anything, do we need FERC to do?

Someplace between the cornucopians and the apocalypsians lies, I think, the reality: we're NOT all gonna start living in caves and surviving off of nuts and berries in 2009.  However life as we got used to living it in the latter 1/2 of the 20th Century is slipping away.  Forever.

Energy will get increasingly expensive.  It will be economically essential that we learn to live with less, consume less, travel less, produce more of what we consume locally.  

These are not a bad things!  These are opportunities to begin to rediscover how our local communities can work in ways that better fulfill our needs.  (Not cravings, needs).

Not a bad thing, that is, to the extent that politicians don't cynically exploit our fear of change to push their own plutocratic agendas.  Which of course they will try to do.  I don't want to name any names, but Bush and Cheney and McCain and their buddies can either get on the bus, fade off into the sunset, or shut the f*ck up if they want to do something positive for America.  

"Conservation may be a great personal virtue, but it's no basis for an enery policy".  

Yeah, well, f*ck you too, Cheney.  You can go to the back of the line after the revolution.  If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, you scum-sucking swine.

ce1907 -- There are something like 2 million geothermal heat pumps installed in the US, currently, I believe, and Sweden is making a big push to install them in buildings (and I have no personal connection to the industry).  There is an entire development near me here in Evanston that has them installed.  It's very mature technology.  The problem, as with most renewable technology, is that the financial system is set up to fund 30 year mortgages for houses in the middle of nowhere, but not to create an energy infrastructure that might save the biosphere -- the solution being, in my opinion, lots of government-financed loans.

cjwirth, while I agree that your scenario could play out, we have to understand that 1) trains should be electrified, and if you look at Alan Drake's recent post at theoildrum.com you will see that most countries are moving in that direction.  The US ran virtually all of its freight prior to WWII via trains, including food.  Secondly, if things got that bad, I think that priority rationing of gasoline would go to trucking, if the trains were not built up, to move essential things like food, and to maintain at least some of the highways.

But the other thing is that for the most part, the manufacturing sector of the economy runs on electricity.  All the machinery does, and that's the most important part of the economy.  So if intelligently done, a powering down economy could switch, certainly with dislocation, but not necessarily collapse.  Then again, I said, "done intelligently".

The article is unworthy of Gristmill.  But still a good example of the misdirection of conventional wisdom purveyed by the media and politicians.  This is the kind of thing that makes low information voters into misinformation voters.

Anyway, onto the better thread. Conservation subsidies would help ground source heat pump mass production and installation.  If the government payed between 5 and 10 cents per each kwh saved, or it's GHG equivalent curtailed, that would get the payback down to a few years for these systems.

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

"Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area, good climate with much rain and good soil?"

yes please

how, specifically?

does anyone have a bill introduced?

Don't see many articles on Grist that go this direction, but I'm glad to see another view besides energy efficiency, windmill in every backyard, solar panel on every roof, and what is the last bit, oh yeah a chicken in every pot. I guess I forgot the waste dervied biogas powered CHP turbine at the center of every town/suburb/city.

I agree with all you guys we need more energy efficiency, more solar, more wind but look at the other article just posted on India. Do you all really and truly think they can meet their rising energy demand on the holy trinity of renewable energy alone?