I suspect the deliberate moratorium on nuclear energy, building refineries, and tapping our own resources, including our giant natural gas resources, is a deliberate government policy. You can only demand power and money in government when you keep having a failure you need to solve.
On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Hollywood <[email protected]>wrote: > > Richard, > > Very good post. It has always amazed me that we were first able to put > a man in orbit in the summer of 1961 and only 8 years later sent men > to the freakin' moon and safely returned them to home. And at a time > when all of NASA had computer capabilities probably less than the one > I'm using right now. > We need to put that sort of priority on freeing us from dependence on > fossile fuels to the point we can tell the middle east to just drink > their damn oil and pound their sand up their asses for all we care. > > We seem to simply lack the political will to do so. > > On Jul 11, 7:05 pm, RichardForbes <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Call it liberal, call it conservative or just call it crazy. Here is > > what I think needs to be done. > > > > We are fixated on fossil fuels. Whether fossil fuels cause global > > warming (personally I think the entire issue is based on silly > > science) nobody can argue that it does damage to the ecology. More > > importantly, fossil fuels are not renewable in any reasonable period > > of time and the reserves will run out some day. In the short-term, > > our dependence on fossil fuels creates a national security problem and > > we actually funnel money to the middle east, thus financing much of > > the terrorist activity we so fear. However, we have federal > > legislation that limits our ability in the short-term to mitigate our > > increasing foreign dependence and we have a tax system that makes it > > unprofitable for the oil companies to explore alternative and > > renewable energy sources at the pace that is needed. > > > > Therefore, I propose that a NASA-like program, focused on development > > and deployment of alternative and renewable energy sources be > > established. The primary source of funding would come from the > > elimination of redundant and unnecessary existing government > > programs. The life of the agency would be capped at ten years. The > > purpose would be to advance those technologies that the free-market > > cannot justify pursuing at this time. The added scientific research > > might push the oil companies to re-evaluate their development models. > > However, if that is not enough, increasing the taxes on the > > distribution networks may provide added boost. However, this must be > > offset by reduced taxes on the production of current oil reserves as > > well as the simplifying of rules related to refining of oil products > > and drilling. If we do all of these things, we will create a short- > > term cushion against foreign dependence while simultaneously > > eliminating in the long-term, a dependence that cannot continue for > > many reasons. > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
