Fight the gas prices

[Occhidiangela]

Not sure how to take that comment. Without assuming to much, Ill wait for a possible elaboration.

Rebellion without a well considered direction is not only ineffective, it can be counterproductive. I noted a slant toward bio fuels, which when one peels back the onion, have a considerable carbon investment per BTU extracted in the production cycle, and which also demand an unassessed, to my satisfaction, drain on water resources as an element of the production cycle of any crop.

"Fight gas prices" by asking Congress to intervene? To boycott gasoline? The supply and demand forces will, in the short term, render such moves laughable, while in the long term, a policy (personal) of making a smaller carbon footprint through one's own choices may, over a generation, have an impact. (The kicker is the cost benefit analysis each of us can make, and makes, based on resource constraints.)

Ill founded, iconoclastic idealism was a factor in the slow down, and then near cessation, of the licensing of nuclear plants in the US back in the 1980's. This mind set, rebellion against "evil nukes" absent a clue, led to the first ever State Utility, in New Hampshire, going bankruptcy due to a Massachusettes NIMBY policy about a "buffer zone" on the border of Mass and NH. The plant was built, but could not be used.

Qui Bono? The US Coal industry in particular, and to a different extent, anyone selling oil and gas. Thirty four years of poor energy policy (since the first Arab boycott) bolstered by the non-science of appeals to fear (Chernobyl) and emotion (Three Mile Island) have contributed materially to power generation not converting to more carbon friendly forms, like nukes.

Granted, nukes pose their own challenges, but nothing that R & D and hard work can't address, rather than the Ostrich method of policy crafting the "no nukes" crowd advocated, and achieved, to the detriment of the environment and US energy policy. Note: the French produce about 70-80% of their electricity from nukes. It can be done.

Your opening post, and some of the dross on the front page of your site, is examplary of misguided demagoguery on the energy topic.

Clicking, I found myself confronting yet another "rebel without a clue," and so noted my reaction.

For a similar type, see the people who bomb abortion clinics: rebels without a clue, on a different topic, or Jack Thompson, and his uninformed campaign against video games.

To your credit, you appear to be as much into fact gathering as in campaigning, so

Lay on MacDuff, and damned be he who first cries "Hold, enough!"

Added/Edit: If you want to influence global supply and demand problems, and thus cut gas prices, kill off about 500 million Chinese people. Then, cut drilling restrictions off the US coast. Then, do your best, and institute a viral campaign among your friends and associates, to use one less gallon of gas each week, than you did last year. Behavioral choices are hard to enforce, so it is hard work (but worth doing by those with the gift) to sell the change credibly. <== Aye, there's the rub. ;)

Occhi