Time to chose sides on the great oil debate of 08. It is clearly divided between the left and right as usual. The left says no domestic carbon based energy development nor nuclear authorizations, the only solution is "green alternatives to carbon based energy". The right says drill here, drill now and explore nuclear while developing "green alternatives to carbon based energy".

Here is my debate position on the debate: We need to develop nuclear clean nuclear power plants to charge our clean green battery cars. We need to drill here, drill now to develop all sources of domestic oil to replace imported oil. We need to develop clean coal, coal to liquid and oil shale to oil. We need to use all the proceeds to develop "green engineering" to determine the best methods of alternative energy that will replace carbon based energy.

Here is the foundation to my oil argument: Drill everywhere or nowhere. If it is safe in the Gulf of Mexico then it is safe everywhere. If it isn't safe in Gulf of Mexico close down all domestic oil/natural gas operations immediately and import from other nations. This is simple logic and reason...

Watch as the left crumbles in the next six weeks under the scrutiny of this logic and reason... When airlines go tits up and the federal government has to bail them and their union retirement packages out... when Big Brown and Fedex goes tits up and hit the unemployment lines ... let the left offer them a solar panel or windmill solution and see the nation smile as they run them out of town with their environmental and trial lawyers in tow.

Great, Zack, are you volunteering your back yard to dump all that nuclear waste?

I think we can start by closing the Enron loophole, because it won't matter what energy we end up using, the speculators will drive up the price of it. So that is the first move. That alone might show an immediate reduction in the price of oil and gasoline by 25% to possibly 50%. That isn't going to take us ten years to benefit from, like more drilling, more nuclear power plants and things like that, that have to be constructed before the benefits kick in. And one of McCain's right hand men is Phil Graham, who benefited greatly from the "Enron loophole".

Perhaps we could outsource our nuke waste to France instead of outsourcing our jobs and economy to the rest of the world due to our high energy prices? http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml

I have no problem with checking to see if the speculators are jacking up prices on energy.

How about this, we will need oil for a few decades as we make some transition regardless where it comes from. Oil is traded in dollars and the weaker the dollar the more we pay for oil/energy. The more money we export to other nations buying oil, Canada, Mexico and Venezuela the less the dollar is worth. As a result of our exporting of dollars the price continues to spiral upward. Why not demand all our money is kept at home to help make the dollar stronger and the energy costs lower?

If we continue to increase energy prices we cannot even produce alternative competitively with the rest of the world... it will be cheaper to build and buy solar panels from China. Energy costs exports jobs... glass, cement, steel, fertilizer, bricks and the related economies fed by those producers cannot compete with the rest of the world with less expensive energy. Natural gas used for much of the above, home heating and electric production is very environmentally friendly but it costs over $12.00 a unit. Mexico and Canada offer this resource at lower prices Precio Mexico: Is a Disconnect from US Gas Prices Feasible? - Natural Gas, Latin America, Policy/Regulation, Prices, Trends, Market Market, Research, Size, Share, Trends, Analysis, Demand, Sales, CERA, e-Profile, energy, Yergin, Prize, oil, natural g resulting in exporting of jobs for the above mentioned sectors. American workers are competitive and efficient but cannot compete with low NG prices as a base for production in an area where cheaper labor and energy prices compete.

Wow, way to dodge the question.

I agree the waste is a problem, but the tree huggers worry about the waste from coal fired electric furnaces. No one wants poor people to freeze in the winter nor be short of electricity so ... Guess we need to see how France is dealing with the problem of waste... develop an equal way to have waste from coal put in a package we can worry about how to safely store or sit and look at the wall when we have no electricity.

NG, clean, Nuke, clean Coal, dirty. No drilling for NG then more coal or nukes or no electricity.

Solar panels for meeting the needs of one home minus Air Conditioning costs about $30,000, with climate control more. We are a long way off from solar electricity so NUKES, Coal or Natural Gas? I say nukes and NG and work on Clean Coal and alternative energy at the same time.

Word has it that China opens a new coal fired electric power plant every week, so if one worries about the environment we need to figure out how to clean up coal so we can get China to use clean coal otherwise it won't matter if America is Carbon Free because China will have destroyed the world with dirty coal.

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Originally Posted by Zack Solar panels for meeting the needs of one home minus Air Conditioning costs about $30,000, with climate control more. We are a long way off from solar electricity so NUKES, Coal or Natural Gas? I say nukes and NG and work on Clean Coal and alternative energy at the same time.

I predict that by the time the next possible newly-built-from-the-ground-up nuclear plant goes online in the US, perhaps seven (or more) years from now, the cost of solar cell-produced power per kiloWatt-hour will very likely drop to a small fraction of what it costs today. And this is because solar cell technology is currently and quickly evolving such that their conversion efficiencies are growing while, at the same time, they are becoming cheaper to manufacture.

And, nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive. (Not to mention the fact that the fuel for non-breeder-type nuclear reactors, just like oil, is a non-renewable, finite commodity that will always increase in price, on average, in the future. And, as well as being even more expensive than conventional nuclear reactors, breeder-type reactors carry substantial security and safety risks.) And, who do you think will end up paying for them? The consumer, meaning us, will end up paying for them in the end. So, I'd rather spend my hard-earned money intelligently, at least as a homeowner, than throw my money away on technologies that are outdated and, more importantly, more expensive to me in the end.

(Fossil fuel and electric heating and standard electric air conditioning systems are significantly less efficient at heating and cooling a home than geothermal heating and cooling systems. So, if a homeowner is to install geothermal heating and cooling in their home today and invest in solar cell technology in seven to ten years from now, he or she could potentially “live off the grid” in the future while, at the same time, spend less money to heat, cool, and power their home in the future.)

That's a very well thought out response! I agree with the negatives you point out on nuclear power as well but still think we need a low cost clean electric source to encourage electrical powered autos to reduce oil demand. The cost of energy directly effects the economy and causes employers to move to lower energy sources. My preference of low cost/clean electric comes from natural sources hydro or wave power along with wind and solar. The environmentalist don't like hydro electric that requires dams that block natural water flows and interferes with habitat. There are micro hydro electric systems that don't interfere with habitat, in fact I tried to introduce such an idea to the Bush administration and my governor. I'll take a moment to explain the idea below...

The total plan outlined a governor's energy challenge that would identify technologies that could possibly replace carbon based energy. It employed state and private universities science and engineering departments and also employed state and federal assets to state governors needs, for example state army national guard/federal army reserve/active training funds for engineering units would be dictated by the governor in support of developing test constructions identified by the universities. Governors would make available labor from court ordered community service, prison labor and federal prison labor all coordinated by each governor's team. The most efficient models would be given federal grants and granted management by the winning state(s).

My environmental friendly micro hydro electric system goes as follows:

Concept:Using the governor's energy task force above that contains an efficient low cost technical/functional workforce develop a system that meets several community needs including fresh water, flood control and sustainability with low impact on the environment.

Water from higher altitude reservoirs would be placed in high volume steel pipes to small community reservoirs. Water, going down hill creates head pressure that continually multiplies. At each community place a hydro electric turbine on the pipe to capture the horsepower created by the head pressure. Water collected from the bottom of the community reservoir is drawn from the bottom of the reservoir through a combination of aggregate and sand to serve the water purification for the community. But in this case half of the water would be diverted to the next community where the process continues to communities at lower elevations. For example, management of flooding and water needs of lower altitudes could be from a high altitude state like Colorado at 5,000 feet to communities at all lower elevations to Texas. Or from Michigan to Florida resulting in abilities to move excess water from one region with too much to another like Atlanta last year that had too little.

Well, President Bush sent me a parchment letter with an original fountain pen signature suitable for framing about eight weeks later... Actually, I guess a GS 2 with access to his signature machine sent it to me... my governor never even sent me a note.

I just watched this guy on book review on C-SPAN talking about his new book, GUSHER OF LIES The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence’ If your get a chance watch book TV later today and see if the show is repeated. Otherwise try to find his book to read up on his position. Here is a link on the nytimes on his book... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/books/07book.html

Cliff notes perhaps?