The first lesson every President learns is that in trying to please all his constituents he pleases no one, including himself.
President Obama sold the $800 billion Stimulus Plan to the American people as a strategy to create untold
infrastructure jobs. If fact, President Obama said the stimulus plan would save or create 3.5 million jobs in the next two years and that he hoped to limit the unemployment rate to a peak of 8% this summer. In typical political bait and switch fashion his democratic Congress allocated 8% of the stimulus money to infrastructure projects. Instead of infrasturture jobs Congress gave us cornucopia of social programs that have been on their wish list for decades, leaving the President with egg on his face.
The
unemployment rate has already reached…
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When the only tool you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. In other words, there is no problem that a bureaucrat can't solve, if only we would let them pass another regressive tax. That may well be the sum total of the creative thinking that has gone into the Obama
Cap-and-Trade plan. The Obama Administration proposes that companies buy a permit for each ton of carbon emitted, at an estimated cost, to start of $13 to $20 per ton. The permits could then be bought and sold. The theory behind this convoluted scheme is that it will somehow miraculously increase energy efficiency and renewable energy development.
Rather than focus on available technological solutions, let's burden hard working American consumers with another ill-conceived regressive tax! Who…
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Only one industrial country in the world has significantly reduced its carbon footprint, and that country is France. France, the sixth largest economy in the world, ranks 15th in
carbon dioxide emissions, behind pre-industrial economies like Iran and Indonesia. France has simultaneously, reduced its dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels, coal, natural gas and oil. While we dither with small-scale experimental intermittent technologies like
solar and
wind in the United States, France has gone nuclear and clean. In 2008
wind and solar accounted for 1.1% of US energy needs and even if we meet President Obama's objective of doubling the amount by 2012, its contribution will still be inconsequential. In the best-case scenario for wind and solar, they might together generate 20%-25% of our clean…
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Heat from the Earth, or
geothermal - Geo (Earth) + thermal (heat) - energy can be readily accessed by drilling water or steam wells in a process similar to drilling for oil. Domestic geothermal energy is an enormous, and underused heat and power resource that emits little or no greenhouse gases. Mile-or-more-deep wells can be drilled into underground reservoirs to tap steam and very hot water that can be brought to the surface for use in a variety of applications. In the U.S most geothermal reservoirs are located in the western states, Alaska, and Hawaii. About 8,000 megawatts of electricity are currently produced globally including about 3,000 megawatts of capacity in the United States. The
US Department of Energy believes that an additional 15,000 megawatts of geothermal electricity…
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Hydroelectricity is the most widely used form of
clean renewable energy in the world, generating over 19% of the world's electricity. It requires no fuel and produces no direct emissions or by-products. The United Nations estimates that the technically exploitable potential for
hydropower is 15 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, amounting to half of the total projected global electricity needed in 2030. In the United States, hydropower has fallen to 10% of the electricity supply mix down from14%, 20 years ago. In terms of electricity production, hydropower accounts for only 7% of America's current power needs.
Source US Department of Energy
In theory, the mechanics of a
hydropower plant
Coal-fired plants produce approximately 50% of the electricity in the United States and 82% of power-generated
carbon dioxide emissions. If electric vehicles are charged exclusively by coal-fired electricity they produce more
greenhouse gases than a traditional gasoline-powered combustion engine car. In the future, electricity must be generated cleanly if we expect automotive electric-drive technologies to reduce our carbon dioxide burden. Clean energy alternatives like
Wind and
solar power will probably make a significant contribution to clean energy generation, but realistically, we cannot count on these two sources for more than 20-30% of our electricity needs in the next 20 years. Even reaching these modest goals will require a major investment in energy infrastructure and fundamental advances in technology. In light of these realities, it…
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