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I don’t think the energy needs from all alternatives is going to be “insignificant” as you describe, but certainly won’t make an impact before the next 5 years or so. Part of the coming impacts is the revolution in electrical storage and the development of more efficient technologies that use less energy but run better and do more work for less. Intel’s new cpu chip sets for example come to mind, or my solar calculator that does scientific functions in candlelight! A single new product may not make much difference but many more efficient technolgies will in the aggregate!

But what my main focus has been and maybe I have not communicated it, if the intrinsic worth of energy independence. If we could supply all our own domestic energy needs of all types, even if the price were higher compared with what commodities we currently need to purchase from the outside, would that not be more desirable? I hate paying 3$ a gallon(equivalent ie electric, fuel,ect) to some foreign power out of sheer principle...but I don’t mind it so much paying it to domestic producers who supply jobs to our economy and pay taxes to our government!

Well i would like to see more Nuke plants but even if the Enviro’s were all beamed back to their mother ships and a crash program of building new plants instituted, I would be an old man before the full benefits of the plants come on line. I would all be for more domestic drilly.

Not true. The Chinese are able to bring a plant online in less than 5 years from design to power generation. Surely we could do the same without interference from "activists."

I don’t think the energy needs from all alternatives is going to be “insignificant” as you describe, but certainly won’t make an impact before the next 5 years or so.

Alternatives will not make an impact at all. They will never be more than 10% of US energy consumption unless we decide to cover an area the size of Kansas with solar panels and decide we want to pay 10 times the current rate for electricity from coal.

Part of the coming impacts is the revolution in electrical storage and the development of more efficient technologies that use less energy but run better and do more work for less. Intel’s new cpu chip sets for example come to mind, or my solar calculator that does scientific functions in candlelight! A single new product may not make much difference but many more efficient technolgies will in the aggregate!

Electrical storage solutions would be helpful, but the primary problem is in generation, not storage. Intel's new CPU chipsets will have an impact on US energy consumption too small to even measure. The same is true for solar calculators. Most energy is consumed in processes that are at or near their efficiency limits. For example, replacing incandescent lights with LEDs means I'll have to spend more energy heating my home.

But what my main focus has been and maybe I have not communicated it, if the intrinsic worth of energy independence. If we could supply all our own domestic energy needs of all types, even if the price were higher compared with what commodities we currently need to purchase from the outside, would that not be more desirable?

No. That would not be more desireable. It is most desireable for the lowest cost producer of any product or service to provide it. Malinvestment in any product or service serves to reduce productivity and comparatively impoverishes us all.

I hate paying 3$ a gallon(equivalent ie electric, fuel,ect) to some foreign power out of sheer principle...

What difference does it make?

but I don’t mind it so much paying it to domestic producers who supply jobs to our economy and pay taxes to our government!

Foreign oil producers are some of the largest investors in the United States and "supply jobs." As for paying taxes to our government, I am generally opposed to any measures that increase taxable revenue to any branch of government.

jas3

“I hate paying 3$ a gallon(equivalent ie electric, fuel,ect) to some foreign power out of sheer principle...”

Trade is not a bad thing. If we want other countries to buy American products, then they need dollars to buy them with. They get those dollars by Americans buying something they have.

A Trade DEFICIT is a bad thing, and oil is currently a huge contributor to that deficit. Trade that is so necessary that you are forced to overlook differences in philosophy, security, human rights, etc. is also a bad thing. That is not ‘free’ trade, since you have become dependent on that trade partner.

I agree that in the current situation we should be energy independent, or at least reduce our imports to the point where we are in balance with what they need to buy from us.