[Vision2020] Alberta's Tar Sands and Idaho's Wilderness Gateway

[Paul Rumelhart]

--- On Tue, 6/1/10, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
Some argue that it is a matter of national security and economic necessity to develop and gain access to this huge oil resource that can reduce oil dependence on other foreign oil sources, while we work on alternative energy sources.  But this is short sighted, given that climate change is a national security and planetary wide risk that is increased with continued greenhouse gas emissions, while time is running out to prevent climate change tipping points that will be difficult to stop.  

I wouldn't call it "short sighted", I'd call it "realistic".

Here's how my logic goes:

1.  We need power.  We need it for a lot of things.  Transportation of goods, heating and cooling, powering factories, running our financial systems, gathering resources, military defense, etc.

2.  It would be better, for a lot of reasons, if we weren't dependent upon fossil fuel use.

3.  There are no alternative energy solutions of sufficient size that we could turn to today to completely remove our dependence upon fossil fuels, except nuclear (which the same people that are telling us to get off of fossil fuels are throwing bureaucratic roadblocks in the way of).

4.  There is no way that we could nix fossil fuel use within 20 years, maybe even 50, even if we had the will to do it.

5.  Using fossil fuels produced in politically insane countries that are politically our enemies is unwise.

6.  Given all the above, it would be better (in my opinion) to switch our fuel usage as much as possible to local fuels or fuels from politically sane countries in the short term, build up a network of nuclear power plants to handle our minimum energy needs, switch over to electric cars, implement a "smart" electric grid, and supplement with alternative energy as needed and as they are developed.

If the right incentives were given at the right times, it might be the quickest way to remove our fossil fuel dependence.  Taxing everything that uses fuel, which is everything of any use to anybody pretty much, is economic suicide.  I'd rather that the government implement a Manhattan-style project to bring up nuclear power, preferably using breeder reactors and the latest technologies, and quit naively hoping that if we tax the hell out of everybody they will magically find a better alternative instead of just doing without and reverting to an agrarian society.  Meanwhile, China and India will continue to burn fossil fuels and (assuming anthropogenic global warming is as dire as they say it is) we won't have the resources or ability to handle the disasters as they happen.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

Paul

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20100601/7abf182a/attachment.html