But since you want to talk policy I'll offer my fix for the problems of the US.
- The US makes energy independence a national security matter, allowing squashing dissent and legal challenges to nuclear power plants by presidential executive order. Bonds are issued for funding of nuclear plants, to the order of a minimum of $100B per year for twenty years. New designs are put into production by US Government funding, including thorium reactors. A minimum of twenty reactors per year for ten years.
- Methanol, produced from methane, which we have an abundance of, is introduced into gas stations at a market price, which is easily less than gasoline and diesel per gallon of gasoline equivalent. No new facilities or government money is required for this.
- Oil shale, conventional drilling, fraccing, oil sands, and the Keystone pipeline would be fast tracked. New oil shale in Colorado and Utah would be fast tracked as a national security matter.
- Government subsidies for wind and solar farms cease, excepting where a cost benefit analysis shows true feasibility. Here I am thinking of remote locations, small towns in good locations, islands and so forth. For these locations, equipment - wind and solar - could simply be moved from substandard locations where it now exists.
The result of the above policies would be a change to several hundred billion positive balance of payments, energy independence within a decade, two decades worst case, cheaper gas for cars in the US, and cheaper home heating and cooling for our houses.
The industry that fueled that last two decades of growth in the US was housing, the industry that will fuel the next two decades of growth is energy. The future that I aim have exist, and which I have and will worked toward, is a positive one.
You will note there's no big government scam blithely said to be "cap and trade" or "carbon taxes" in my vision. However, those who are concerned with net carbon emissions will note that the plan includes a huge increase in nuclear power achieved by neutering the anti-nuclear tactics of the radical greenies and using private funding. If you are concerned with carbon, you can easily calculate the net effect of this scale of nuclear power. If you cannot do that, I might do it for you if you asked politely and I wasn't feeling lazy at the moment.
