Gasoline prices in the USA.

[steelie]

I have to agree with Darian. There are some land owners in Texas now that have put wind generators on the properties. The land has lost resell valve because they are very noisy (that is why birds aren't killed by them). Also they need oil to lubricate the gears and that has been polluting because they just dump it out on the ground. The only means to make electric is hydro, coal, natural gas and solar (which means huge land mass to create enough to support our needs).

[Darian]

Flyfshrmn,.... The info about the cost of residential solar systems came from a widely publicized (both print/TV media) report made during this spring. Sorry, I can't make an exact cite as I wasn't aware that we would be discussing this subject again, at this point in time. The source was, supposedly, academic and the info was placed out there only for consideration when buying a system.

The rest of your points don't really change anything I stated, previously.

My point about killing birds was a minor point but I won't concede that the equipment for both wind and solar systems is esthetic. They're both big and ugly and have some negative impacts. My original point about people not changing to a more expensive alternative, even if it's better for the environment, may be illustrated by your point that more birds are killed by motor vehicles each year than windmills. Even though thousands of birds, animals and humans are killed annually by motor vehicles, we haven't reduced the number of them on our highways at all. In that, the public is reluctant to change due to higher cost or non-availability of alternative power product or reduced mobility if the number of MV's is reduced....

Hopefully, when these alternatives become more efficient, their costs, direct or indirect, will come down to the affordable level (....if they're ever fully developed) and their potential negative impacts be reduced thru improvements.

I agree with the contention that politics has interfered with the development of alternative systems but that doesn't take the point far enough. Government can choose to create incentives or take them away; as it chose to do when it failed to extend tax credits for alternative energy development. Thus, I wholeheartedly agree with the point you made in the prior post about becoming an activist. Politicians listen to money and votes. IMHO, this is about crisis management and nothing will be done until all of the available fossil fuels are depleted.

[Scott V]

This should start another discussion, I got this off the AP "Associated Press"

Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds "to make clean coal a reality," measures designed to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

In a third straight day of campaigning devoted to the energy issue, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting also said the only time Democratic rival Barack Obama voted for a tax cut was for a "break for the oil companies."

McCain said the 104 nuclear reactors currently operating around the country produce about 20 percent of the nation's annual electricity needs.

"Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years," he said. "And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone."

Even so, he said he would set the country on a course to build 45 new ones by 2030, with a longer-term goal of adding another 55 in the future.

"We will need to recover all the knowledge and skills that have been lost over three stagnant decades in a highly technical field," he conceded.

Later, at a news conference, McCain said he favors steps to reduce the time plant owners need to obtain the necessary permits. He also suggested U.S. companies use common technology to shave the time in takes to bring a new nuclear facility on line.

In an appearance before an audience at Missouri State University, McCain also said, "We will need to solve complex problems of moving and storing materials that will always need safeguarding."

Shortly after he spoke, a participant in a campaign-organized round-table discussion of energy, retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, said obtaining the necessary construction permits can take five years. "We should be able to cut that in half," added Jones, a former NATO commander who is now chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber Institute for 21st Century Energy. He also is on the board of Chevron.

Jones flew to Missouri aboard the campaign's chartered jet although, ironically, Democrats recently disclosed that his name has figured in Obama campaign discussions of potential Democratic vice presidential running mates.

McCain's motorcade drove by a few dozen sign-carrying demonstrators protesting the Iraq War. One audience member interrupted his remarks by standing and shouting that the Arizona senator had taken millions from the oil industry.

A dramatic spike in worldwide oil prices has pushed the cost of gasoline to $4 a gallon and more, and made energy a domestic political issue in a way it has not been since the days of the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s.

On Tuesday, McCain delivered a speech in Texas in which he made the case for a nationwide effort to reduce dependence on foreign oil, including additional drilling in U.S. coastal waters, and said he would begin laying out specific proposals in the coming days.

With his appearance in Missouri, he began making good on that promise.

The Republican presidential contender said Missouri gets about 85 percent of its electricity from coal, an abundant natural resource in the U.S.

"Perhaps no advancement in energy technology could mean more to America than the clean burning of coal and the capture and storage of carbon emissions," he said.

With the $2 billion in federal funds, he said, "We will build the demonstration plants, refine the techniques and equipment, and make clean coal a reality. This single achievement will open vast amounts of our oldest and most abundant resource. And it will deliver not only electricity but jobs to some of the areas hardest hit by our economic troubles."

It was the second straight day McCain has criticized Obama, the Illinois senator who will collect the Democratic presidential nomination this summer, a few days before McCain lays claim to the GOP nomination.

Obama has said McCain's support for additional offshore oil drilling is evidence that he would effectively give the country another term of the Bush presidency.

"I guess the senator has changed his position since voting for the 2005 Bush energy bill — a grab-bag of corporate handouts that I opposed," McCain said. "Come to think of it, that energy bill was the only time we've ever seen Senator Obama vote in favor of any tax break — and it was a tax break for the oil companies."

McCain opposed the 2005 measure and said at the time it was larded with billions in unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry.

[Darian]

Just a guess but it like sounds campaign sound bites to me. I'm tired of the posturing by all politicians. One thing for sure, he'll have to convince a Democrat dominated congress to get what he wants done. As if to support my last post concerning allowing tax incentives for alternative energy to expire, the SF Chronicle reports that unless these credits are extended, they will expire by the end of the year. Now believe it or not, some of those credits go to homeowners who invest in a solar system for their homes. Up goes the time required for ROI and down goes cost effectiveness when investing in same. Not to mention what it does to the businesses that are into development.

The nuclear power options mentioned by McCain and Jones sound like an example of my other point that Nuclear power generation is not inherently bad. The people involved in design, maintenance, management are the problem. If we truly have lost the knowledge base for building a nuclear facility, why would we consider shortening the time required to get permits; to allow dummy's to build "....another 55" Further, using "common technologies" to develop reactors means what The same technology used to construct reactors aboard submarines/ships or something else

Currently, a facility for storage of spent, radioactive fuel rods is not available. What do we do with the additional spent fuel rods until a facility is constructed Kinda sounds like someone is putting the cart in front of the horse. Once again politics trumps everything.

[flyfshrmn]

Obama is right about McCain being just more of the same old Bush BS. There's nothing in his statement about renewable, non polluting energy sources - just more coal, more oil, more pollution, more CO2, more drilling, more oil spills and ocean pollution, with a poor attempt to disguise it as cleaner. You have to give him an unclear on the concept evaluation - our current situation is the result of relying on fossil fuel and the answer is not more fossil fuel and it doesn't matter how you try to clean it up, it doesn't solve the basic problem and it doesn't matter how much you produce from new exploration, it still only extends slightly the time beyond which you will no longer have any usable fossil fuel at any price. Unless McCain can repeal the laws of thermodynamics, any solution that sequesters carbon dioxide will require a large expenditure of the energy being produced. It's time to retire the fossil fuel paradigm and start working on solutions that address the basic problem - reducing the heat burden and CO2 burden of the planet.

Nukes are not the answer either. Chernobyl and Three Mile are far from the worst accident scenarios with a nuke plant. Even without the enormous capacity for catastrophic accident, the temptation for the Osama Bin Ladens of our current world is far too much. There is no safe place to store spent fuel for the required time, hundreds of thousands of years. When the actual cost of providing effective security and storing the waste from these plants is factored in, the energy produced becomes prohibitively expensive even by today's standards.

[Rob]

I paid over $3.20/gallon in Bridgeport last week but had a good day on the East Walker River on the Nevada side, so I soon forgot the cost of gas.

Now look at the prices !!!!!!

I feel sorry for you guys in California , we just returned from a week in Davis and the prices are insane . It cost us around 200 .00 for a round trip from Cache Valley Utah to Davis California and back , plus a bunch of local driving . We are still under 3.90 here in our town . . I can't believe i think that's good !!!

[Rob]

You guys are all off base.... They need to start issuing over the counter Tags to cull the number of Environmentalis ruining this fine country for the rest of us. We need to build Nuclear plants for electricity and liquify coal to make gas and Diesel which is by the way a By Product not the highest BUY PRoduct............. Yea I am Pissed could ya tell??????

+1

[Alastair]

If you can handle the truth about why our gas prices are so high, look at this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677#25252591
This gang of criminal thugs have been screwing us since Ken Lay "died."
They don't give a damn about you or our country. They created the "Enron loophole." It's all about the money.
Thanks to the present situation, I can't afford to go to my favorite fishing locations.
Please don't attack me, I spent six years of my life in the military so I have the right to voice my opinion.
Watch this report, the facts presented are exactly why we are getting screwed at the gas pump.

[Rob]

Lets just say you were driving to Utah... You have to drive thru Nevada from California... You would stop and plug your vehicle in some where. My question is how does Nevada generate most of its electricity???

NO !!!!!!!!!!

It look us 11 hrs to go from N. Utah to Davis using gas .
Can you imagine if we had to wait for a electric car to charge every 100 miles or so .

[loganmike]

You guys are all off base.... They need to start issuing over the counter Tags to cull the number of Environmentalis ruining this fine country for the rest of us. We need to build Nuclear plants for electricity and liquify coal to make gas and Diesel which is by the way a By Product not the highest BUY PRoduct............. Yea I am Pissed could ya tell??????

Not really sure if this is a joke or what not. but if this is what the people that do not support science's quest for alternative forms of energy have in mind, then it is a sorry state of affairs.

This is not a personal attack, but this quote is quite possibly the most absurd thing I have read on this board. I feel sorry about this opinion.

As fly fisherman, are we not all some form of environmentalists? If that is the case, well, nuff said.