Mcain and Obama on energy...

Cover EVERY roof with solar panels, using Federal money, and, put PG&E out of business, or cut the heck out of it
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If solar is cost effective, why doesn't each electricity consumer buy their own solar panels? Just wondering why the Federal government needs to be involved.
 
Unfortunately drilling our oil IS the fastest known answer to our energy woes. Don`t know of an alternative source of energy that can replace oil within the next ten years. McCains statement of drilling our oil being the fastest answer to our fuel problems is a true statement.Oil is used to produce literally thous. of products other than fuel. QUOTE]

pretty much sums it up, it wouldn't hurt to recycle more and find ways to manufacture products out something other than oil
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Cover EVERY roof with solar panels, using Federal money, and, put PG&E out of business, or cut the heck out of it
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If solar is cost effective, why doesn't each electricity consumer buy their own solar panels? Just wondering why the Federal government needs to be involved.
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Because the average person doesn't have the cash (or credit) on-hand to cover the short run cost of installation, even though they're cost efficient in the long run. Even with the tax credits that many states offer, solar panels are fairly expensive up-front.

The government, on the other hand, has plenty of money to invest in them in the short run, and benefit in the long run.

A better idea, however, would be to instead institute some form of federal loan program, much like student loans, where the government instead just picks up some small part of the interest but where the homeowner pays for the panels in the long run. Offering credit to those who otherwise might not be able to finance them at a reasonable rate. And unlike a college degree, there'd actually be something to repossess if they defaulted...then re-sell the used panels to somebody else.

Then the real question is whether or not the panels themselves are energy efficient in the long term (as in, do they reclaim more energy than is used to make them). I'm fairly sure they are, though if I looked into it I'd wager there are some resources used in making them that might become a bit more scarce if we really started cranking them out.
 
As with anything else, if they are mass produced, the price per item goes down, and, competition will come around, driving the prices into the more manageable range. They can't be THAT expensive, really, since Kali is currently using them for flashing electric road signs, and messaging boards. On the otherhand, maybe that's why this stupid state argues over 97 or 105 BILLION dollars for a budget.

Amazing what government contracts can start doing. I'm sorry, but, at some point, the government really needs to stop taxing.

Very simple: send from the IRS, a check with each tax return, for solar panels only. That currently runs about 80 grand, for an average house, or did last time I checked.

Besides, the idea here is to drive the price of electric power way down. I know that some people get checks from PG#@ because they buy power from the people, sent over the same power line they had been sending power out.

The entire corrupt, Texas gas pipeline fiasco that was Enron needs to be addressed, and, PG#@ as well, since they cooperated, by shutting plants down for Maintenance that didn't need to be done, etc.
 
JuanCarlos

Because the average person doesn't have the cash (or credit) on-hand to cover the short run cost of installation, even though they're cost efficient in the long run. Even with the tax credits that many states offer, solar panels are fairly expensive up-front.

The government, on the other hand, has plenty of money to invest in them in the short run, and benefit in the long run.

A better idea, however, would be to instead institute some form of federal loan program........
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So, the short answer is that solar for residential use is NOT cost-effective. If the "government" pitches in and buys the dang things, only then are they "cost-effective".

Bad news.....the government doesn't have "plenty of money".......it is currently running a huge deficit.

When solar becomes cost-effective it will compete. Until then, it won't.
 
"Very simple: send from the IRS, a check with each tax return, for solar panels only. That currently runs about 80 grand, for an average house, or did last time I checked."

How many houses are there in the US? The population is about 300 million, so let's say there are 30 million houses:

(30 million houses)($80,000/house) = 2.4 Trillion dollars

A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.

Tim
 
A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.
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All you have to do it tax the oil companies with windfall profits taxes. I'm sure they won't pass those extra taxes along to the consumer. I'm sure the taxes on the profits alone from oil companies will add up to a trillion or so dollars. :rolleyes: We can then build all of the solar and wind farms we can use for decades.

By the way, I heard Nancy (no drilling for me) Pelosi has invested about $150K in T-Boone Pickens project. Is this one of the reasons that she does not want to drill for more domestic oil? Can you say "Conflict of Interest", kids?
 
I think the point that a lot of us are missing including myself until recently is that about 49% of our electricity comes from coal. With less than 2% coming from oil. The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal. That's great for us but what fuels our cars? Oil does right now. You could have a solar panel on every street corner and a wind turbine on every hill but that's not going to drop the price of oil one penny. Our cars run on OIL not nuclear, not solar, not wind. All of that stuff is irrelevant to the price of oil. One of the big problems right now is that we are dealing with a cartel. The oil market is like a big swimming pool. Oil producers put in on one side. Consumers take out on the other. We can say we're not going to use middle east oil but it doesn't matter we get it from the same pool. If you look at OPEC's output over the years it does the opposite of what non OPEC countries do. If a non OPEC country increases their oil output, OPEC decreases theirs. They ingore supply and demand economics. Drill here drill now is just just a political slogan. If we were to get every drop out of oil drilled from U.S. land and funnel it into our swimming pool market OPEC would adjust their production to keep the supply where they want it. We need to have choices with our fuel. The government needs to end the tariff on ethanol imports. Car companies need to shell out and spend the $100 dollars it would take to make every vehicle a flex fuel vehicle. They need to be plug in hybrids as well. Sounds like a bunch of hippie stuff right? A plug in hybrid runs off of electricity and some liquid fuel (gas, ethanol, methanol, dieseil, etc.) It's the only way we can devalue oil itself by using other fuels as well as electricity. Just imagine the transfer of wealth that is occuring right now? Our consumption of oil is funding some of the worst countries out there. This link is very informative
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MVwL2PcCG8
 
"Coal is extremely ugly and should be used as a last resort."

I'll say. The stuff looks like black rocks. Ewww.

Tim
 
There's precious little the Chief Executive can do in reality, perhaps nationalize the energy producers.

Stop and think, in a market economy, what can they really do?

First, they can offer tax incentives in areas where they want investment and dvelopment. This actually works, however the lefties call this "welfare for the rich." But let's be honest, if you want me to buy a second Harely I don't need or I think I don't want, then there had better be one heck of a deal.

Second, you can tie (the call it Christmas treeing) energy legislation to something energy producers want. If they need a right-of-way for a massive new pipeline, then begin the process with a bill in congress including an a section of action you want.

Three, you can offer pork for the district where change is needed. If you have a congressman blocking the action by his vote of a filibuster, offer him money for something else. (Did you ever wonder why we launch NASA rockets from Florida, but the center is in Houston, Texas? Go google the answer.)

The last thing works, but it relinquishes control. Just get out of the way of energy producers and let them develop technology they can sell. In this regard, T. Boone Pickens is so far ahead of the curve most people cannot figure out what he's doing. There's a big ol' pile of money out there ready to be harvested from gray-haired ol' fudds who still think they're hippies. Milk 'em dry by telling them you care.

What do you think was really going to happen? Did you actually believe HBO was going to come to your house and inflate your SUV tires?
 
Coal is a dirty black rock but it's used to produce electricity. It's not the price of electricity that's crippling America it's the price of OIL. 2/3 of are transportation sector runs on OIL. When people talk about using alternative's that only produce electricity (wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, geothermal) it has nothing to do with providing more oil for our transportation. If we have flex fuel plug in hybrids we could use all the renewable energy we could produce but we don't right now.
 
Problem with Hybrids, is due to the doubled cost of electricity, thanks to Enron and PG&#, all of a sudden they aren't economcially attractive. PG&# uses a bell curve to charge you for electricty. If you are over a base amount, the
next chunk costs more, and, it gets real expensive, real fast.
We are currently paying twice what we did last year, yet using 15% less energy then we did last year.:mad:
 
We need everything at our disposal to break the energy dependence including the kitchen sink. drilling is a part of the puzzle. Oil prices have come down to to a decrease in demand and because the talk about drilling is getting serious.

All the oil companies already have huge amounts of land which they don't use, they are only attempting to secure more natural resources for future use. It will not provide any real benefit in lowering gas prices.
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http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/are_the_democrats_correct_in_stating_that.html

Q: Are the Democrats correct in stating that oil companies are leasing 68 million acres in the U.S. that are not being used?

A:Not exactly. More than 4,700 new holes are being drilled on current onshore leases.

there are nearly 68 million acres of federal lands (onshore and off) that are part of non-producing leases as of fiscal year 2007. This is in contrast to 25.7million acres of leased lands that are producing oil.

And there is a lot of activity occurring on leased lands that does not qualify as "production." For 2006, the BLM reported that there were 77,257 productive holes onshore in the U.S. Beyond that, there were 6,738 applications for drilling permits, 4,708 holes in which companies had begun drilling and 3,693 where drilling had ended among onshore lands. That's a total of more than 15,000 holes that were being proposed, started or finished that do not count as "productive" holes. And that doesn't even include holes that might have been continually drilled throughout the year for exploratory reasons.
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:eek:

so please quit using the 68 million acre argument you have been spoonfed

thanks

FYI: The official report

http://www.mrm.mms.gov/MRMWebStats/...t=TotalLeases&yeartype=FY&year=2007&datetype=
 
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