[rubicon]

"The US is surging into global leadership in petroleum products surpassing Saudi Arabia." On the strength of fracking , US petroleum product (oil and liquid gas) has surged over the past decade to 11.5 million barrels a day from 7.3 million according to the International Energy Agency. Additionally US natural gas production has increased 30% leading to a doubling in natural gas fired generation leading to about 27% of total generation replacing coal nearly megawatt for megawatt............fracking is a significant contributor to roughly 7% decline in US carbon dioxide emissions over the last decade."WSJ 10/18/14.

Despite this bright spot in our economy created solely by the private sector the government continues to refuse to consider Keystone and to add insult to injury are now applying what are termed misdirected regulations on rail shipments

Conversely the government both federal and state have extended very generous tax incentives to Elon Musk CEO of Telsa, a vehicle that has a starting price of $71,000. As golf cart owners recognize battery technology still has some very serious short comings.

Questions:

How do you view America's energy policies?
How do you view America's climate change position?
Should the government pick and choose winners and losers or should market forces choose?

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

I think that it's great that we are producing more oil and especially natural gas. The problem is that we sell it to other countries while importing oil.

We have an almost unlimited supply of natural gas. Instead of fooling around with electric cars that are never going to work I don't understand why we don't begin converting all of our current cars to natural gas. We already have the infrastructure in place to deliver it to every street in this country. We could have our own filling station in our homes and easily convert the current gas stations to natural gas filling stations.

Natural gas is cheaper and more efficient than oil and it burns cleaner.

[B767drvr]

IF I were "king for a day", I'd immediately fund 500 of the latest nuclear "pebble reactors" (very safe - although nuclear energy is already extremely safe)… completely electrify the US with non-polluting electricity (like France - ugh!… those cheese-eating surrender monkeys! )

Everyone would drive those little teeny electric vehicles… hey, kinda like that geezer-city with all those golf "cars"… bulldozers and airplanes would run on petroleum… and everyone would live happily ever after!

Oh yeah… climate "change" is a hoax… another attempt to tax the boogey man.

Oh yeah… capitalism all the way. Watch out for all the Carl Marx fans coming out of the woodwork.

[rubicon]

There is a global oil glut and it is depressing oil prices. It is puzzling to see the Department of Energy, the EPA and environmentalist politicize in favor of green. I would love to drive an all electric car. I would love to have the sun and the wind maintain the energy needs of my home. However the large solar energy project in California is dropping birds from the sky literally setting them on fire midair. wind turbines are killing birds of prey by the hundreds, and residents are dealing with unwanted noise and sight of turbines. and of course no wind no electricity

As a owner of an electric cart i know that the distance I can drive is limited. I know that weather has an affect on how much power and how long I will have it and I know that i have to buy new batteries every 3-5 year. the same applies to electric cars. to replace a battery in a Telsa cost $30,000. and let' s not forget that Boeing is have a heck of a time with their new lithium that are exploding and catching fire.

Now is the time for America to realize it dream of energy independence . Now is the time to leverage all of our energy sources and create a plan to satisfy environmentalist and capitalist alike. We need to continue to explore alternatives but we do not want to do so and place this country and its taxpayers at a disadvantage which is taking place now. We need to act or we will miss some very important opportunites

[tuccillo]

Developing a rational energy policy is difficult, perhaps impossible, because decisions are based on political influence and money and not science and engineering. In an ideal world, we would be generating our electricity from nuclear and hydro almost exclusively. Solar cells are useful in many applications but pragmatically you need a reliable, 24x7 power source. Dealing with spent nuclear waste is a solvable problem with the correct leadership. Transportation is all about energy density and delivery infrastructure. Oil has great energy density and delivery infrastructure. We should be able to greatly expand the delivery infrastructure for compressed natural gas and greatly increase it's use in transportation. Batteries are expensive and have low energy density, which makes them a tough sell for transportation. Regardless, they do have their place. I will buy an electric golf cart when reasonably priced and long-life batteries are available.

Regarding climate change, it is greatly misunderstood. The climate changes continuously. The real, and perhaps only, question is "What percentage of the change is due to man's activities?" There is essentially no evidence that man's activities are responsible for a "large" proportion of the change. Those who make such claims are citing the results of numerical climate models. While man-made increases in carbon dioxide does increase the "greenhouse effect", the impact is hard to quantify - perhaps it is small, perhaps it is large. Numerical climate models should be considered an area of research and are not ready to be used as a tool for creating public policy. I used to develop numerical forecast models for the Government and a lot of the physics is poorly understood and difficult to correctly model on computers.

Originally Posted by rubicon

"The US is surging into global leadership in petroleum products surpassing Saudi Arabia." On the strength of fracking , US petroleum product (oil and liquid gas) has surged over the past decade to 11.5 million barrels a day from 7.3 million according to the International Energy Agency. Additionally US natural gas production has increased 30% leading to a doubling in natural gas fired generation leading to about 27% of total generation replacing coal nearly megawatt for megawatt............fracking is a significant contributor to roughly 7% decline in US carbon dioxide emissions over the last decade."WSJ 10/18/14.

Despite this bright spot in our economy created solely by the private sector the government continues to refuse to consider Keystone and to add insult to injury are now applying what are termed misdirected regulations on rail shipments

Conversely the government both federal and state have extended very generous tax incentives to Elon Musk CEO of Telsa, a vehicle that has a starting price of $71,000. As golf cart owners recognize battery technology still has some very serious short comings.

Questions:

How do you view America's energy policies?
How do you view America's climate change position?
Should the government pick and choose winners and losers or should market forces choose?