[anoldafvet]

There is nothing even remotely on the horizon that could be ready in 5 years. everything being proposed would require a massive change in our lives (How many of our 125 million cars are capable of burning alcohol?). There is absolutely no infrastructure for hydrogen and electric cars would require massive amounts of new generating capacity (Nuclear?) None of this is going to happen, at least within the next 15 years or with the current crop of “experts” in congress, so basically, we’re screwed. Our lifestyles are about to take a dramatic turn downward and nobody cares.

What we should demand is that every politician declare whether they support drilling the off-limits areas, building nuclear and constructing refinerys. Those that support increasing our energy supplies get our vote, whether they are Republican or democrat, those that don’t can go sit in the dark in their cold houses.

[chimera]

Your post has captured the essence of the conflict between the political realm and physical/engineering reality when the two worlds collide. Political timelines are on the order of months, maybe a year or two. Development and deployment of new technologies can take on the order of decades. No politician thinks in those terms when they have to run for office every two or four years. Few understand or will recognize the phase lag inherent in making decisions and having widespread implementation across a diverse and complex sector of a technological society.

There is also a fundamental conflict in the manner in which technological decisions made by government entities are reached. You see it in the responses by the various political figures in the original post. A smart political leader will enlist the assistance of recognized technical experts and trust their judgment in advising them on how to vote on technical issues. Unfortunately, today you see political leaders pandering and making decisions based more on what they think the public perceives as desirable, and thus will make them popular. The fundamental flaw in trusting technical decisions to popular votes is that, by definition of a democracy, two morons are "smarter" than one genius, so you have the spectacle of two brainless dolts like Pelosi and Cantwell overriding the intelligence of someone on the level of Einstein. Well, eventually Mother Nature pays no mind of how many votes you have. Pelosi and Cantwell can pass all the laws they want to against energy shortages and high prices, but when you burn up your natural gas in utility boilers, or destroy your foodstocks for some government-subsidized boondoggle like ethanol, the laws of nature and economics will trump whatever laws the airheads will pass.