Ok, this following article is a great read. Now, let me start by saying it is written by Rick Santorum, who I’m not a super huge fan of, but his idea is basically an endorsement of Robert Zubrin’s, an American aerospace engineer.
It basically is a plan to rid us of foreign oil dependance and at the same time bankrupt OPEC. Two birds with one stone baby! How does it work? Mandate all vehicles made in the US are flex-fuel by 2010. They can run off gas/ethanol or gas/methonal.
Pennsylvania coal already generates most of the electricity in this state. The industry is in the process of doing it more cleanly through clean-coal technologies, such as gasification of coal into methanol, a form of alcohol that can be burned in internal combustion engines directly or used to manufacture synthetic gasoline and chemicals. These technologies can lead to a whole host of new clean uses that can help us reduce oil imports.
Santorum also mentions there is a $26 a barrel tax on imported Ethanol. That could be removed I guess, or at least lowered to allow some importing of ethanol until local production could keep up.
The United States is the “Saudi Arabia of coal.” We have a$$ loads of it and will for a long, long time.
Instapundit had a podcast with Zubrin, click here if you want to check it out.
Glenn also says he is hearing rumors from the UAW about supporting the plan. American car makers are generally well ahead on Flex Fuel designs so that makes sense.
I dunno. This stuff is real interesting to read and fun to think about. It’s the kind of stuff that would actually help the country, and doesn’t seem to have any downside, which is probably why nothing will come from it. If a Democrat or Republican can’t “beat” the other, they they won’t try.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackTo say coal has no downside seems to be ignoring the obvious. It’s a terrible pollutant. That would be one downside. “Clean coal” is the funniest oxymoron I’ve seen in some time. Right now they are blitzing the airwaves with adds in support of coal, which is fine as it is, I suppose, but any plan for future energy policy that uses coal as a major component is short-term thinking, imo.
This is from Wikipedia, so take it for what its worth (this particular bit of info does have a source though with the Commonwealth Scientific and and Industrial research organization).
“There are no coal-fired power plants in commercial production which capture all carbon dioxide emissions, so the process is theoretical and experimental and thus a subject of feasibility or pilot studies. It is has been estimated that it will be 2020 to 2025 before any commercial-scale clean coal power stations (coal-burning power stations with carbon capture and sequestration) are commercially viable and widely adopted.”
Seems a little past 2010, if I’m understanding this and some of “flex fuel” comes from coal emmisions?
I think any energy policy should mandate an increase in vehicle fuel effiency, kick it way up to 35-40 as a minimum. That would be feasible for the auto industry. Finding ways to use less or use energy more efficiecy (that is get more or the same amount of power from less material) is the most effective way, not simply switching to just another form of polluting material that will run out one day anyway.
That’s my highly-uninformed opinion. Now ask me about literature or freshman composition and I’ll say something credible.
I think you would like this op-ed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/opinion/24cohen.html?scp=3&sq=france&st=nyt
France’s only good idea.
Yes, I love nuclear energy. I talk about it all the time. It is actually very quickly moving up on my list of issues that will actually cause me to vote for or against somebody.
55% of our electricty comes from coal while only 20% comes from Nuclear. What I can not stand are people who are against coal plants and also against nuclear plants. In my mind, they are either just clueless who how the world works, or are luddites who want us to all live in communes generating electricy with massive hamster wheels.
John Edwards is a good example: The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that during a visit to that city in February, Mr. Edwards declared that atomic energy had no future in America. A spokeswoman for the candidate, Kate Bedingfield, said the report slightly overstated his position, but she added, “He does not advocate building additional nuclear power plants in the U.S.”
For that reason alone, I could never vote for him. (There are plenty of other reasons in his case, ha.)
Paul Tsongas the then democratic front runner talked about how important global warming was way back in 1992 and that nuclear energy was a key component to reduce that, and foreign energy dependance.
However, the rest of the field, including our worthless senator Tom Harkin, used that to destroy him.
Bill Clinton even ran false ads against him. (Perhaps a sign of things to come.)
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“We do not need to do what Senator Tsongas needs to do and build hundreds of more nuclear plants to become energy independent,” Mr. Clinton said at a debate in Denver on February 29, 1992. “One of the reasons he’s ahead in the polls it that people do not know what he stands for.”
Tsongas took umbrage at the claim that he wanted to build hundreds of new nuclear facilities. “That is a lie. That is a lie. That is a lie,” the former senator declared.
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So would Billary be for nuke power now? Maybe? Obama had been a strong proponent of during his Illinois days. I think he still is, but I think he has also “toned” down his talk about it, you know, so as to not piss off the hippies.
Actually, all the Dems are against the Yucca Mountian nuke waste storage facility, so they are basically being untruthful about supporting nuclear energy, or being untruthful about the waste facility, because you can’t be for more nuclear plants, but against a place to store the waste, can you?
Sure, it’s the typical strategy of trying to have it both ways to appeal to two divergent groups within the same party, similar to Republicans being for AIDS funding to Africa, but against distributing condoms in Africa. These sorts of things are the natural result of one person trying to represent thousands or millions. A politician is kind of like a composite person pieced together with the opinions of others, who are likely to diagree often. They’re stuffed with contradictions just like a ballot box is stuffed with competing votes. I can’t really see any way around that, unless someone is only trying for a small percentage of the vote, like a Ron Paul. Then you can be entirely consistent in all your votes and positions, but go nowhere in a presidential race.
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