[sailaway21]

I am sorry CD, I rarely do this but I am going to break your argument down. It is not mean (sic) to irritate but to make the point. (g)

Nothin' brings 'em in off the bench like proposing the old socialist solution, eh, CD? I'm feelin' your pain all the way up here in wintery old Michigan. Just between us; you ain't talkin' this commie pinko stuff down to the IHOP are you? You are still in Texas, correct?

Most of the salient points have been made and, hopefully, this time you're getting them through the better efforts of the above authors. I would reiterate Cam's point that we should let the leases on federal lands now, while oil is cheap, so that Big Oil can pull the trigger when the time is ripe. Elsewise, we'll have even longer gas lines next time while the Congress dithers. Might not be a bad time to throw up a couple of nukes as well.

The bottom line to alternative energies, especially the popular "renewables", is that, if they made sense-economic sense-somebody would be doing them absent government subsidy. Imagine if we had the money back that we've spent in a quarter century of subsidizing ethanol?

Now here's the irony. People, well meaning people, of your particular vision have been in favor, for decades, of supporting...that is, subsidizing, what they want to work while ignoring what we already know does work. How else can you explain that we do not derive 80% of our electricity from nuclear and the remaining from hydroelectric? Hey, forget the science for a moment or even the economics. We import electricity, great big gobs of electricity, from Canada! What's up with that? I don't know about you but, I find that pretty embarrassing. For one, it's not like they've got Alberta covered in solar panels and, for another, we're talking about a country whose only claim to competition with the internal combustion engine began and ended with the sled-dog. That just ain't right!