“[Some man he met in Pennsylvania] needs us to take a permanent *holiday* from our oil addiction by making the automakers raise their fuel standards, corporations pay for their pollution, and oil companies invest their record profits in a clean energy future.”

Love it.

Maybe the government will “make” me eat corn flakes in the morning instead of a bagel, and “make” me exercise each night instead of watch TV. Then they can “make” me drive a small car to work instead of an SUV, where I can work more of the year to pay the taxes they “make” me pay.

Yes, the drift towards state-control always starts out with the best of intentions.

How about this instead–let’s work on an energy solution cleaner AND cheaper than coal, so people WANT to use it instead of HAVE to use it.

But the opposite of poll-pandering is not resisting the urge to pander; it is leadership. And that will require someone who can not only resist governance by polls, but someone who has both the moral courage and the rhetorical skill to shape polls … to lead people from their baser selves to their better angels.

I don’t know if Obama is that person. But I do know Hillary and McCain have shown us they are not.

The U.S. auto industry has been too shortsighted to build fuel-efficient cars Americans now want — nor are they prepared for the inevitable doubling of prices from the current level and the fantastic pain that will cause the country if they continue on the current path.

Now, the good news, as I have blogged repeatedly, is once we have plug ins widely introduced, you’ll be able to take your one person occupancy, relatively unsafe for you and others, SUV to work — at least until it becomes so clear that we are in the midst of a climate catastrophe, and big SUVs become as fashionable as smoking.

But the government needs to accelerate the transition to plug ins and the transition to zero carbon electricity, because the “so-called” free market (who paid for all the highways, anyway?) by itself will just continue to destroy the livability of the planet.

I’m not at all convinced of that. I don’t talk much about it, but the numbers from LFTR technology may be extraordinary. Remember that even EXISTING coal plants have to get fuel, and as world prices for coal escalate (as they have been doing over the last few years) even these plants may not be able to economically operate–even without a carbon tax.

We’re seeing the market work with cars. Gas prices have gone through the roof, and consumers are saying “hmmm, maybe the SUV isn’t nice enough to make up for $100 a tank. Hmmm, that little Yaris isn’t looking too bad anymore.” And the car companies are being caught flat-footed.

Joe, watching your documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” is what got me so excited about real electric cars, not these halfway-there hybrids. I want to buy a real electric car, so I can quit paying Osama and start getting carbon-free, nuclear-powered transporation to work.

For what it’s worth, I do support a carbon tax. I think those scummy coal plants should have to pay through the nose for fouling our air and poisoning our citizens.

But I too have been very encouraged about the Gas Tax Holiday ploy this time around. It does seem that something has shifted, and maybe it is the leadership of Obama that put a voice to it. And I think this puts to rest the notion that Obama will not fight. To take McCain and Clinton head-on by opposing a tax reduction was not a flight from conflict - Obama picked his fight wisely, and I hope this is something he does against McCain - and as President to overcome the fossil fuel ownership of Congress.

There is no technological bullet on the horizon that is going to save us from destroying the climate - its going to have to done by taking on the tough opposition directly, and making those changes in pricing AND mandates that get to the necessary GHG reductions. I hope Obama has the chance to take this on, like he did the gas tax.

I have to disagree…thorium can do the job.

http://www.americanscientist.org/ template/ AssetDetail/ assetid/ 25710/ page/ 2

India’s attraction to thorium-based fuels stems, in part, from its large indigenous supply. (With estimated thorium reserves of some 290,000 tons, it ranks second only to Australia.) But that nation’s pursuit of thorium, which helps bring it independence from overseas uranium sources, came about for a reason that has nothing to do with its balance of trade: India uses some of its reactors to make plutonium for atomic bombs. Thus India refuses to be constrained by the provisions that commercial uranium suppliers in countries such as Canada require: They demand that purchasers of their ore allow enough oversight to ensure that the fuel (or the plutonium spawned from it) is not used for nuclear weapons.
India’s attraction to thorium-based fuels stems, in part, from its large indigenous supply. (With estimated thorium reserves of some 290,000 tons, it ranks second only to Australia.) But that nation’s pursuit of thorium, which helps bring it independence from overseas uranium sources, came about for a reason that has nothing to do with its balance of trade: India uses some of its reactors to make plutonium for atomic bombs. Thus India refuses to be constrained by the provisions that commercial uranium suppliers in countries such as Canada require: They demand that purchasers of their ore allow enough oversight to ensure that the fuel (or the plutonium spawned from it) is not used for nuclear weapons.

Kirk is right the the Indians are currently running reactors with different nuclear fuels, Including thorium cycle based fuel.

Funny how the so-called “liberals” always support regressive, smash-the-working-man taxes. How about taxing the profits of the oil companies, instead?

I want to take up this issue of “no technilogical bullet” thing. Of course there is…

In no particular order, assuming the US, specifcally (but applicable world wide) had an actual *plan*, then the already proven, developed-in-the-1950s, LFTR would in fact be such a bullet. Why would it not be?

If the US had a real conservation plan; put the money it has now fighting for fossil fuels in Iraq into a Manhatten-style electrical storage system that can cheaply (relatively speaking) get over 200 miles to a single charge for an electric vehicle, then we cold go 100% atomic power.

The LFTR is *cheaper* to build than a regular LWR nuclear plant, the fuel is 4 times as plentiful, it producing only 1% of the waste of the above, it’s exlosion proof. We wouldn’t even need the carbon tax. We could eventually get to the point here we stop building ICE land transportation powered by fossil fuel and even ban their production down the road.

None of the candidates think this long term. None of them seem to have the imagination to raise this seriously. From atomic fission into your car in one swoop.

David