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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (5394)	2/26/2009 9:56:38 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86352

I think its just a matter of looking at the positive and negative aspects of everything. For example, I like the idea of more nuclear power, though I recently posted an article on the obstacles it faces. When I say I like it, I mean I know it can be made to work economically as we have done it on a significant scale (I am biased in favor of things we've demonstrated we know how to do). And its frustrating to see that some of the obstacles are political ... thrown up by people idealogically opposed to it. I like the idea of oil shale ... because we've got lots of it out west. But I know the problems it faces and doubt it will ever be developed in my life time. There are other non-conventional "conventional" fuels - like methane hydrates, liquified coal. These have a positive aspect that we have a lot of them too. But there are obstacles to overcome that make either of them doubtful in my lifetime. As for solar and wind, I don't like that they're so dependent on government aid. I'd like them more with no govt aid at all. And I see the the advocates of those things making arguments on their behalf that ignore and blithely dismiss as irrelevant the problems - transmission, storage, batteries, intermittancy, and even the future problem that there would inevitably be big environmental objections to those things if they were adopted on a big scale. I think you guys are willing to see only the pluses and ignore the negatives. There are pluses and negatives to everything.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (5394)	2/28/2009 12:12:32 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 86352

Instead, we're debating the ideology. NO.. YOU are the one filtering everything through your ideological veil. This is apparent by accusing anyone who contradicts your viewpoint as being a member of the "Bush" crowd. I'm debating the subject on a cost/benefit analysis. Any alternative energy solution has to provide a similar economic benefit when compared to fossil fuels. If switching to alternatives means that our economic cost (vehicle price and inevitable battery replacement, electrical infrastructure.. etc) is greater, where the economic value to our nation's productivity? IOW, how will this make us more competive versus other economies? If we're all tied (currently) to fossil fuels, at least it's an even playing field. If you want alternative energy to flourish, it must represent a paradigm shift that increases our productivity and decreases costs to the consumer. Hawk