Posted on 10/04/2011 2:28:58 PM PDT by Titus-Maximus
The United States faces a clear choice of pushing forward quickly to refine solar, wind and other renewable energy sources or continue to ignore the less obvious costs of reliance on oil, coal, and nuclear energy, Robert Kennedy Jr. told a group of environmentalists Sunday afternoon.
In discussing other costs that are often ignored, Kennedy cited the process of transporting coal from West Virginia. The government spends millions of dollars per mile to fill thousands of miles of road in the state with 22 inches of asphalt, Kennedy said.
"Coal claims to be cheap but is probably the most catastrophically expensive way to boil a pot of water that has ever been devised," said Kennedy, the son of slain U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. "The coal trucks weigh 90,000 pounds and will pulverize less robust roads."
Speaking at the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and Save the Sound's annual meeting, Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and chief prosecuting attorney for Hudson Riverkeeper, said renewable energy will ultimately be more efficient than traditional fuels.
"If you read a paper today you can't help but see most of our problems are caused by our use of energy," Kennedy said. "Whether it is Fukushima or Indian Point power plant the problems are linked to how we extract it, deploy it, or reuse it."
The recent rejection of President Barack Obama's job proposals by Republican legislators, who cast further investments into solar and green energy projects as cronyism, are disingenuous given the public subsidization of oil, nuclear, and coal electricity interests, Kennedy said.
What Kennedy cited costs that should be associated with those energy sources, including what he estimates is a $4.5 trillion price of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the next 20 years, and $750 billion in subsidies to oil companies.
"This hemorrhage annually of American wealth has beggared our nation that when I was a little boy, owned half the wealth on the face of the planet," Kennedy said.
Kennedy drew a historical parallel between Congress' struggle to pursue greener energy policy over the long term to the debate whether to abolish slavery in the English Parliament in the 19th century.
He said both debates included similar arguments about economic dislocations. Kennedy said emancipation triggered an opposite effect, because smart entrepreneurs saw the opportunity posed by the end of slavery to create industrial machinery that made up for the advantage lost by the end of free labor.
"Because slavery represented 25 percent of the gross national product for Britain, people argued that if you abolished slavery the economy would crater," Kennedy said. "Instead the British economy exploded as entrepreneurs rushed into that space and started the Industrial Revolution."
Yeah, that was 68 which ends at 70 in MD.
Had you gone East at US 33 from I 79, you’d have had a good 4 lane (Corridor H) for about 35 miles. After that, two lane 33 over the mountains to Harrisonburg, VA, though scenic, is a tough drive.
Because of the terrain throughout the state, most all non-interstate like roads (now THERE is a tortured phrase) are tough, two lane affairs.
good line.
He did lower the capital gains tax and put Byron WHIZZER White on the Supreme Court. I wish all Dems were that “bad”, we would have a great country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.