[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by markbot

The solution to the world's energy diversification issue is so easy that it's quite frustrating. We don't need a lot of fuss and recriminations. Just implement a large fossil fuel tax and restart the nuclear energy industry in the US and in other countries.

That's beginning to happen. The Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, decided to restart a nuke plant they had shut down, and to resume construction on one they had interrupted. Nuclear power is beginning to come back into fashion in the US as electricity demands increase, oil becomes more expensive, and coal is widely understood to be a problem. (The average coal fired generating plant emits more stray radiation into the atmosphere than a nuclear plant, because coal contains radioactive isotopes, strip mining devastates large swaths or the territory it is done in, and coal minig has a variety of health hazards for those who do it.)

If oil were still as cheap as it was when people started deciding nuclear power was a Bad Thing, it might still be out of favor, but as oil prices rise, nuclear starts to look better.

It is ironic that the mindset of Greenpeace is what has caused its own fake global warming dilemma since if people didn't campaign against nuclear energy in the US, carbon emission would be a fraction of what they are now. The US is still the largest producer of nuclear energy but as a fraction of total generation it has fallen behind. There are a lot of political issues with nuclear power in the US, such as the fight for waste disposal with states and the fear over nuclear weapons. But, I think if the fake global warming threat were really taken seriously...nuclear energy would be one of the first things to be solved. Since, it isn't...I think this really means that we have called the global warming industry's bluff.

They don't think it's a bluff.

But the underlying question from where I sit is "If global warming is real, how much of it is caused by man, and how much is due to long term climate cycles beyond our control?" We are coming out of a period of glaciation.

The UN is not really concerned about global warming since they don't want poor countries to maintain/cut carbon emissions. This has the effect of increasing overall carbon emission since manufacturing and energy production in the developed world is much more efficient...by multiples even. The global warming crusade is simply a wealth redistribution scheme.

The UN is a political body, the majority of whose members are lesser developed countries. China may be the biggest sticking point, as they want to industrialize rapidly, are will to take environmental damage in the process, and have no patience with others trying to tell them not to.

The second part to the solution is to levy a large fossil fuel tax. This is the most efficient way to get people to stop buying SUVs. In the US, for example...the gas tax is only a few cents. Make the gas tax a couple of dollars and use that money to fund clean energy, like building solar power plants. But of course, it is difficult to trust politicians to do the right thing with that gas tax. What they will most likely do with it is pay off their constituency in the form of entitlement programs. Also the manufacturing trade unions are holding us all hostage since they would lose in the case of a gas tax. The socialists cause their own problem in the first place, then hold us hostage by withholding the obvious solution! Nice! At least we know where the conservatives stand...pro business. The socialists are pro our self destruction.

Tossing Socialism into the discussion muddies the waters. The underlying issues will be there regardless of political affiliation, and it's an oversimplification to lump Greenpeace, the "global warming industry", and Socialists into the same category. It would be nice if it were that simple...

A $1 tax per gallon on gas would yield over $100B per year in the US. If we used all of that money to build solar or wind power plants, we'd have clean energy powering the US within 10 years. Hypothetically, if solar or wind energy costs $1M per MW. We could have all US base load electricity as solar or wind power within 10 years with this tax.....assuming we solve the electricity variability issue. Throwing in nuclear power...and we could make fossil fuel obsolete within a generation!!!! But NO!!! That would be too damn easy.

We have a large fossil fuel tax. It's called high prices at the gas pump. Sales of things like SUVs are off because people can't afford the gas they require, and sales of RVs have largely stopped.

And Europe imposes that sort of tax now to encourage people to use less gas and decrease dependence on foreign oil.

But ultimately, economics rules. Back in the 70's, I worked for a government funded project to promote alternative energy, particularly solar. It was in the early days of OPEC, when gas prices at the pump were moving above (Gasp!) one dollar a gallon.

There were a variety of alternative energy possibilities, including hydro electric, geo-thermal, ocean-thermal, wind power, and biomass conversion. They achieved limited penetration because ultimately, they tended to be more expensive than coal, oil, or gasoline.

Alternative energy becomes competitive when its cost is.

The energy diversification issue is actually a pretty easy problem to solve. The real problem is will the political system.

Not entirely.

Nuclear power is an effective solution to meeting electrical energy demands, but electrical energy is only one form of power. The last I looked, electric power generation accounted for about 1/4 of the total US energy budget. The rest was residential/commercial heating and cooling, industrial heating and cooling, and transportation. Those still mostly use oil, natural gas, or coal, and largely have to.
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Dennis