POWER PLANTS CITED AS CHIEF CAUSE (of soot deaths)

I am not for that. Far too messy and a very dirty bomb sitting on our soil. Better ways to go about it than nuclear.

What is so messy about it? As far as it being a dirty bomb, practically the only way to breach containment short of a nuclear weapon would be a "bunker buster" bomb, and the terrorists are a little short on the military infrastructure to deliver one to the continental United States.

One of us is an optimist. The other believes we have reached the limits of our techincal abilities.

Let's start with cars and place ourselves back in 1997. A chrysler New Yorker was very comfortable and could travel down the highway at 70 mph getting about 14 mpg and putting out relatively clean air.

Move ahead in time to 2004. A Lincoln Town Car which is still very comfortable and luxurious can travel the same stretch of highway at 70 mph putting out much cleaner exhaust and getting 25 mpg. And it is a far safer vehicle.

In 1977 would you have thought it possible that Americans could still have the luxury they want and be able to get 80% better milage and have much cleaner exhaust? Or did you think then also that we had reached the limits of our automobile technology?

Certainly we can improve milage efficiency without compromising motorist comfort or safety. Not overnight, but over 25 years certainly. And with national resolve, we could do it at years, even decades, sooner.

As for houses, we have not even scratched the surface. Again, without a little resolve and not a whole lot of added cost, everyone could be enjoying a $48.00 average monthly electric bill like I enjoy.

Get some faith.

Your point is well taken, and I have faith, but I have more cynicism. Gas engines are approaching thermodynamic limits - not there yet, but not a whole lot more to be squeezed out either, and the "improvements" (I don't consider mandatory expensive air bags* and mandatory expensive anti-lock brakes to be improvements**) have not come at a cheap price. Even adjusting for inflation, a car today is significantly more expensive than in the'70s Just had my fuel injected car worked on for misfiring. Problem: intermittently shorting wire in injector control circuit. cost to find and fix $450. Like I said - efficiency at a price. Even today $450 buys a lot of gas.

*Just buckle your seat belt and you don't need an air bag - Seems to me with air bags the mandatory seat belt laws are just there as fund raisers (see cynicism justified)

**Insurance institute studies of cars with and without anti-lock brakes show no difference in the numbers of accidents and no difference in the costs of accidents between the two, so why do we have to pay for them?

You too have a point. The safety has come at a price. I know about those car repairs. Taking mine in tomorrow becasue the air bag light is on.

Getting back to my optimism, I do think we can do it. And if we could see the answer in an instant, well, we would not need engineers.

We will have to keep working on this one but I remain convinced (not a blind optimist, mind you) we do not need to expand nuclear to solve our energy needs.

And we do not need to return to the dark ages as the environmental religion (hacky sack crowd) would like to see. They just hate cars and air conditioning and technology and their every move it geared towards eliminating these "evil forces."

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