What's Next for Energy Policy?

This begs the questions:

"Is there an authoritative and credible source for the actual amounts of energy consumed by the USA each year listed by the type of energy source"

and ---

"What are credible sources of projected possible growth, either + or -, for the next 10 or so years of each source"

I think it's important to look at the numbers as well as ask ourselves which are actual sources of energy and which, like fuel cells, are conversion methods that while they may have some other benefits like environmental friendliness but are not actual energy sources.

And I think it's important to recognize the present level of technological development in each energy source that exists today as well as what are the practical limits of each energy source for the USA without taking on extreme social, environmental or financial burdens.

Ed Weldon

Not just a Good Answer - but the BEST and the ONLY answer.

Excellent answer that the UK could use as well, nobody here in the UK thinks engineers are worth tupence and they ignore invention if it does not come from within their own box and from their own insestuous heads.

What are we talking about here?

There is energy indepedence, which to the US at least, means paying any price to keep our freedom from being infringed on by petty despots who prey on our consumptive habits.

There is the alternative energy source group who want to save us all from global warming.

Then there are the political zealots who have latched on to bashing existing energy companies as unregulated capitalist pigs and see any energy source as better than what we have as long as government can control it.

Let's not forget the "over unity" guys with their info-mercial approach.

If there was any easy answer to other energy sources they would have been instituted long ago. We need to look beyond the pitch and try to understand the agenda behind it. Midwestern USA is littered with bankrupt ethanol plants whose fortunes were tied to apparent well meaning government policies and subsidies seeking alternative sources of energy for independence and to lower carbon footprints and blah, blah, blah.

We will eventually achieve improvements that will make a few of us rich and independent and have less impact on the environment. I am willing to bet that the best approach will come from the private sector.

There are solutions that are politically easy - throwing public money at anything that the current junk scientists have deemed to be "renewable". This approach gets us:

ethanol with half the energy content of gasoline and a negative energy output.

Windmills that produce electricity when the wind blows and the demand requires it. In practice, about 20% of rated capacity.

Then there are technically easy solutions - throw a little fissionable material into a containment and collect almost unlimited power for about 20 years.

An "energy policy" is going to reconcile the above. Until then we don't have an energy policy - we have a series of wild mis-steps and screw-ups.

They are all needed, each for it's niche, some more than others. It is not the role of government in the US to actually develop these; that's the role of private industry. What the government needs to do is create the climate in which private industry can plan and function and to direct the application toward the public good.

Spot oil is $49.28 as I write this post. Nobody will invest more than a pittance in alternatives so long as that is the case. If we want to do serious development in a market-driven economy (China has the luxury of an authoritarian government), we MUST have a price floor on oil - perhaps $80, perhaps $100, perhaps $120, and that floor must be permanent and not subject to political whim.

Any politician who tries to enact such a floor will likely not survive the popular hue and cry. We wussy Americans are "entitled" to our big cars and our long commutes and lighting up every hectare of land from Anchorage to Key West. If President Obama wants to advance alternatives, he needs to work out a deal with OPEC where they charge, say $80 a barrel, add $20 for an under-the-table payment to the US IRS, and agree to limit production to stabilize that price. In return, we could give them Afghanistan or the Spice Girls or some baubles.

Let's throw in Texas also

So, don't quote me on this, but the last time I heard, the Spice Girls were a British group, and thus, the (Quaiyne...?) might not be too receptive to us (colonials?...) giving away such a revenue-generating group, even if their music sales have sagged just a bit...

If we want to rid ourselves of people that consume more money than they're worth, maybe we can pass Congress off on them?...

Make sure if you do you send them on a slow boat around the tip of Africa

So they are (though I think we have one now). Maybe HRH will do a three-way: she gives up Spice and we put the Duchess of Cornwall in a witness protection program in Jersey City.

We should be heavily investing in the development of Fusion power.

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200811/iter.cfm

Allow me to be a cynic for a moment and comment that ITER looks like the "scientists full employment act".

Seems to me we need to put some effort into out national power grid before we will be able to really utilize multiple sources of energy generation. Sure, you could build a bunch of windmills that may work great when the wind blows, but chances are, the majority of the useful breezy land doesn't have the transmission lines to bring the energy to anywhere useful. We can create all the energy we want from any source, all over the nation, but if we don't have the ability to bring that energy from the source/s to the consumer/s, what good is it? Let's face it, our electrical grid is weak at best.

As far as the energy sources themselves, we need to use everything we have. solar, wind, hydro, wave, sea currents, clean coal, and yes nuclear (though the last two are much less popular, and more i haven't spoken of). Its about using what nature has given us to its fullest, without exploitation.

I'll get off my rant before I get rambling on... *stepping off my soapbox...NOW*