by Allan Taylor

Created on: February 14, 2009

America's energy policy is in Green Shackles (1). That is the problem!

Green Shackles are the unnecessary and restrictive legislation pushed by the Green Movement to promote their dangerous Green ideology.

Politicians of both the Democrat and Republican parties subserviate themselves to the Green Movement in order to gain the Green votes.

It seems the first priority of politicians is to gain power and stay in power and so have a high status job. Therefore the vast majority of them can not afford to buck the system and be seen to be "politically incorrect".

Will it be possible for the USA to break these shackles? I don't know.

This does not harbor well for the USA to achieve a sensible Energy Policy to allow for future prosperity!

Let's first look at electricity generation.

At present US electricity is derived from coal-fired power stations 52%, nuclear power 21%, natural gas 16%, hydroelectricity 7%, oil-fired 3%, and other sources 1% (geothermal, wind and solar).

So the Democrats' (Obama) policy of promoting renewable energy, in particular wind and solar energy for electricity generation, in order to meet future demands, seems inappropriate and futile.

Wind power is uneconomic and requires ongoing operating subsidies. Solar energy is even more expensive. Both these renewables need almost 100% backup with conventional power generation so why build them in the first place?

What are other countries doing about this problem?

France is a world leader in nuclear technology and has 59 nuclear power plants and generates 80% of its electricity by this means. Figures for some other countries are South Korea 40%, Japan 30%, Spain 24% and UK 20%. So the USA has allowed itself to lag way behind in utilizing nuclear power and hasn't built a new plant for over 30 years.

However, to get ahead it is necessary for the US to reject the Green anti-carbon ideology and the US Supreme Court decision ( 2007) that CO2 is an atmospheric pollutant, which it is NOT. CO2 is a vital life giving minor component of the atmosphere and is an essential fertilizer for the biosphere. Contrary to the preachings of Al Gore, the world would be better off with more atmospheric CO2, not less, nor is it causing global warming (2).

This false legal decision by the US Supreme Court has given supposed justification to demonize the element carbon and carbon dioxide. It has opened up Pandora's box for the politicians to dream up new carbon taxes and restrictions on businesses to emit "greenhouse gases". Utilities are

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