http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=easterbrook112204

John Kerry ran on a platform that called for dramatic changes in United States energy policy. George W. Bush ran on a platform that called for keeping the energy status quo. Bush won, yet the Kerry change may soon win on energy policy. Too many trends are worrisome.

Click above link.

Can you explain or post excerpts???

Link above is for registered users only... Thanks.

If Kerry had dared to tie the Bush National Energy Policy to oil money financing Arab Terrorism he might have won. If he had enthusiastically supported replacing our dependence on foreign oil with biomass fuels in less than 10 years he could have won a few more votes in the farm belt, red states. If he had argued that creating the infastructure to produce biomass fuel would help end our balance of trade problems while creating millions of new jobs he might have won Ohio.

The DOE and USDA have been pushing biomass fuel for years. Bush has ignored them and the CIA and Kerry did not point that out, http://www.bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/ . The fact that oil money could buy an atomic bomb and destroy NY City doesn't mean much to an anti-abortion Conservative Christian idiot. They are too busy trying to legislate morality. As a Conservative Christian Republican with degrees in Physics and Computer Science, l tend to see things from a different perspective.

If voters do not see spending $60 billion a year to protect Middle Eastern Oil for the last 20 years and fighting 2 wars for oil is the wrong road for their happy SUV lifestyle most of them must be the product of failed partial birth abortions. I would not count on their support.

Whoops, sorry -- I'm registered and I forgot.

Okay, worrisome are: United States dependence on Persian Gulf oil keeps rising, price of oil keeps climbing and Bush's deficit spending is lowering the dollar and forcing dollars we pay for gas to go down in value, greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, scientific indicators of artificially triggered climate change keep getting stronger, natural gas supplies are perilously close to becoming a national problem.

Clinging to the status quo on energy policy is not attractive.

As is already noted in this thread, there are attractive alternatives -- like biomass fuels which is noted in an above link.

The article I linked is about a think tank called "Resources for the Future." It called for substantial alteration of U.S. energy policy, especially on fossil fuel use. It mentions zero-emission nuclear power and author says their report "brims with appealing ideas."

I looked at the "Resources for the Future" web site, http://www.rff.org/ . Their article "Energy Independence won't happen any time soon" is just another rehash of class-c politician's solutions from the presidential campaign. The 5 billion gallon target for ethanol production is crazy. The U.S already produces 3.3 BG from feed corn and the capacity is growing at around 20% a year, but we could do much better. Cellulose ethanol from field waste and grasses used as the ethanol feed stock has the potential to supply all the liguid fuel we need. Iogen corp in Canada has been producing 260,000 gallons of cellulose per year in their cellulose ethanol test plant in Canada from wheat straw.

It is true that The U.S.A could not produce enough ethanol from corn to replace the oil based fuel used. We could only produce about 27 billion gallons of ethanol from the feed corn. Using corn also produces a like amount or brewer's grain which is superior animal feed from corn. We should not plant more corn for ethanol because it requires more energy to plant and harvest, plus much more water and fertilizer than superior biomass plants. These plants actually improve the soil. They could be planted on the 34 million acre U.S. Soil Bank and much of the Great Plains where they are indigenous which is too dry for corn.

I could accept the 20% a year increase in ethanol production if we were not at war with terrorists financed by oil money and global warming was not a serious possibility.

Ethanol is not the only liquid fuel solution biodiesel from vegetable oil is also very possible and environmentally friendly, http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html . These fuels work in our current technology vehicles and also fuel cell vehicles in the future. http://www.rff.org/ appears to be about 20 years behind the times in theit thinking. Check out the DOE and USDA web sites if you doubt me, http://www.eere.energy.gov/biomass/ and http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/ and http://www.eere.energy.gov/biomass/sugar_biorefineries.html and many more .

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