Tangent Alert: In the year 2000, candidate (and Vice President) Al Gore promised that, if he were elected President, he would put all Social Security funds into a "LOCK BOX" (his words, not mine), so that oldsters would never have to worry about their SS checks.
Has enough time elapsed that we can say what should have been obvious at the time: This was a fatuous, cynical lie, intended to strike fear into retired people that if they voted for his opponent their social security checks would be in danger? Gore is lower than fish feces.
But to the subject at hand: The science of the greenhouse effect is not seriously in dispute, although predictions of the actual climate impact, and their timing, are all over the lot. But there are a couple relevant facts to be kept in mind.
First, China, India, and Africa will be continuing to build coal-fired power plants at a rapid pace for the next several decades. It is indisputable that within ten years, coal will be the chief source of electrical energy on the planet, and one cannot even imagine a time in the future when that fact will change. Hence, any attempt to curtail burning of fossil fuels in the U.S. is pointless, and needlessly against our own self interest. In all candor, it is Anti-American. (Note: Germany, with its much publicized shift away from Nuke will be relying most on...guess what?... COAL! Hilarious, ain't it?)
Second, with the potential for Hydro basically tapped out in the U.S., the main candidates for renewable energy are wind and solar. But neither of these is adequate for BASE LOAD generation, as they simply do not do much at night. So they can reduce the amount of fossil fuels that are burned, but will never be more than a marginal source of energy. 15% tops.
Third, we are the "Saudi Arabia" of not only coal, but also natural gas. Most new electrical plants being built here are gas-fired, and it is not hard to imagine that within the foreseeable future, our cars, homes, buses, trucks, trains, and everything else will be powered, one way or another, with natural gas. Our gas resources are, for all practicable purposes, infinite. We have reached the point where the biggest threat to the industry is over-supply, which drives prices down so low that it is not as profitable as the gas producers would like. (But Europe will be a goldmine, once they figure out the best way to ship LNG over there).
Fourth, the death of Nuke is an economic and environmental tragedy, and not based on any rational thought. The episode in Japan, like the one at Chernobyl was needless, and the result of eggregious human error (the location of the plants), and for the world to simply abandon nuclear power - the only reliable source that emits no CO2 - is a stupid tragedy. Nuke in this country has become prohibitively expensive mainly because it is regulated by power-crazed neurotics at the NRC.
Al Gore has become a caricature. He is Ralph Nader without the brains. Jimmy Carter without the compassion. One of those public personages that most people would simply like to STFU.
