National Review needs to find a real energy advisor and a real economist. Finite supply in 100 years is, guess what folks, finite supply. Instead of going forth in flagrant disregard of clear signs and deliberately inviting our grandchildren to desecrate our graves over our failure to heed clear signs, we ought to start actually doing something. Theories about peak oil don't mean you run out of oil; but merely that new discovery and develpment grows slowly enough that the price point at which supply intersect demand keeps increasing [which means that windfall profits increase, thereby justifying taxes on "excessive profits."]
We seem to be caught between the maelstrom of the leftwing orthodoxy - well good we can go back to a prehistoric civilization - and the right - problem? What problem? Profits are good. Oil companies are good. [never mind the balance of payments required to import it all]
What 100 years does mean, if we have 100 years is that we have some time, if we start now, to make alternative arrangements, i.e. a robust nuclear program because nothing else can cut it. Responsible conservatives would start addressing how we are going to meet energy demand, and stop this gawdawful pointing fingers at everyone whose solution might not accord with their troglodyte version of "free markets" which we have almost never had in energy supply anyway.
AndyJackson: “Responsible conservatives would start addressing how we are going to meet energy demand, and stop this gawdawful pointing fingers at everyone whose solution might not accord with their troglodyte version of “free markets” which we have almost never had in energy supply anyway. “
“Responsible” conservatives don’t tell other people how to spend their money. If you think you’ve got the solution, then you finance it with your own money. Yes. Start a company or invest in one with your own cash. That way, when you lose your shirt on some energy boondoggle, you are the only one to pay (or, on the extremely remote chance you actually have a good idea, you’ll wind up rich).
The problem here is people who think they know best and want government to drive or fund it (with other people’s money, btw). The ONLY conservative solution to this energy crisis is to get government out of the way and let your evil troglodyte free market do what it does best.