[pissant]

MIT is full of very smart IDIOTS.

[Always Right]

MIT's Energy Research Council report (click here for PDF) was the result of a year-long study. It concluded that industrialized nations need to accelerate a switch to cleaner and more efficient sources of fuel, a transition that could take 50 years.

Ever heard of NUCLEAR energy.

[thackney]

The university intends to create a permanent energy laboratory or center within five years, which it will do over several phases. Its report calls for the creation of several multidisciplinary programs, each requiring up to several million dollars in funding per year.

Key phrase in bold.

[RightWhale]

The Dept of Energy was originally going to come up with solutions to the energy problem, but they took over nukes and oil and did some R&D on coal, originally for $5 billion a year and now $23 billion a year. The best place for research is the universities; even if it ends up absorbing nothing but federal funding, at least some research will be done.

[Lekker 1]

Energy Schmenergy...we need to steer more research money and resources to NASA so we can go to MARS.

[backhoe]

I have been covering, ( Or, as Seamole puts it...-backhoe's pseudoblog--... ) pseudo-blogging, this issue for years, so allow me to drop out of Lurk & Link mode for a rare bit of commentary-- we all need to get serious about our dependency on foreign sources of energy, and use our own resources.

Our consumer-based economy is driven by and dependent upon readily-available, reliable energy-- choke that off, and we'll all be back to using one rotary dial phone in the dining room, watching one TV in the living room, and driving one car per family-- probably a Hudson Hornet or a Nash Metropolitan...

We need to

1) end the nonsensical ban on offshore drilling off California and Florida--read & weep:
Castro Plans to Drill 45 Miles from US Shores, But We Can't

2) build a lot of next-generation nuclear power plants, not just for electricity, but for any process requiring heat, power, or steam.
And if we replaced our existing nuclear plants with this one there would be significant benefits.

3) end Jimmy Carter's idiotic ban on recycling nuclear waste, and reprocess the stuff rather than fighting over where to bury it. Europe has done this for decades.-- what to do with spent nuclear fuel? Answer here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1468321/posts?page=50#50 hattip:  Mike (former Navy Nuclear Engineer)

4) use the 300-500 years worth of coal we have on our own land, using the new clean-coal technology.
-Clean Coal Centre--

5) and finally, there's nothing wrong with conservation, we should all practice it- but you can't conserve your way out of a shortage. Nor is there anything wrong with "alternative" energy sources- except they don't supply the vast ( not to mention readily-available ) amounts of power we need at a price competitive to more conventional sources. Then again, there is this to ponder:
Energy From the Gulf Stream
http://www.energy.gatech.edu/presentations/mhoover.pdf

We do need to get serious about this before we get strangled by a bunch of petty thieves and dictators who don't like us much.

My tongue-in-cheek collection of energy-related links:

Sticker Shock-$3 a gallon gas? Click the picture:

And kindly note, and note well-- the first reply to this post ( when gas was $1.45 a gallon ) was derisive... so, who's laughing now?

Vest-Pocket Summary:

1- drill for gas & oil like crazy- onshore, offshore, and in Alaska
2- go nuclear for power
3- convert stationary plants to clean coal technology or Next-Gen Nuclear
4- slash taxes and regulations like crazy

[the invisib1e hand]

free market at work!!! but don't expect the media to blow a trumpet.

[Hardastarboard]

issues related to . . . global warming and climate change--from pollution "are not going away."

Wow! This lady IS a genius. They can't go away if the NEVER EXISTED. She shore is smart.