[Goose]

It is my firm belief that policies geared to average a new green economy revolution will be the next growth driver like the internet was.

That could happen, but it will happen only if the Government intervenes only minimally. The internet revolution worked because it was driven by individuals unencumbered by predefined solutions and in ways that didn't exist at the start of the development.

European politicians are finally coming to grips with the fact that they have no real plan to provide electricity at night and no real plan to replace natural gas heating. Germany has started on a hydrogen program (belatedly IMHO). We in the USA are behind even that. California produces "a lot" of renewable energy, but much of that is solar and unavailable at night. 34% of our power is nuclear, which is scheduled to go away, yet we have no substitute on the drawing boards. Recently the State was forced to grant a waver for several large natural gas plants to continue operating because there was no peaking capability to replace them. This was true even though the deadline to shut these plants had been known for years.

What we need from Government isn't a carbon tax (or the like), but rather a viable plan/requirement to actually replace the generation capacity with renewable energy. This plan doesn't need to (and shouldn't) say exactly how. It should just say emissions must drop by X in 5 years, no ifs, ands, or buts.. Force the power companies to build a new infrastructure to do it by simply forbidding them to continue burning natural gas/coal. It can be done using technology we have at present. The solutions available aren't necessarily ideal, and may not be cheap, but they exist. With such a big financial incentive to reduce costs, you will be amazed at how fast the technology advances and the solutions improve. I for one don't think battery storage on a massive scale will ever be practical and environmentally acceptable, but I am willing to be proven wrong. Tax relief will be required (probably) for the investment required for such a massive change. However, we have to mean it when we make this a national priority equivalent to (or larger than) the race to the moon. That will get us there. Diddling around the edges as we have been doing will not.

[Goose]

It is my firm belief that policies geared to average a new green economy revolution will be the next growth driver like the internet was.

That could happen, but it will happen only if the Government intervenes only minimally. The internet revolution worked because it was driven by individuals unencumbered by predefined solutions and in ways that didn't exist at the start of the development.

European politicians are finally coming to grips with the fact that they have no real plan to provide electricity at night and no real plan to replace natural gas heating. Germany has started on a hydrogen program (belatedly IMHO). We in the USA are behind even that. California produces "a lot" of renewable energy, but much of that is solar and unavailable at night. 34% of our power is nuclear, which is scheduled to go away, yet we have no substitute on the drawing boards. Recently the State was forced to grant a waver for several large natural gas plants to continue operating because there was no peaking capability to replace them. This was true even though the deadline to shut these plants had been known for years.

What we need from Government isn't a carbon tax (or the like), but rather a viable plan/requirement to actually replace the generation capacity with renewable energy. This plan doesn't need to (and shouldn't) say exactly how. It should just say emissions must drop by X in 5 years, no ifs, ands, or buts.. Force the power companies to build a new infrastructure to do it by simply forbidding them to continue burning natural gas/coal. It can be done using technology we have at present. The solutions available aren't necessarily ideal, and may not be cheap, but they exist. With such a big financial incentive to reduce costs, you will be amazed at how fast the technology advances and the solutions improve. I for one don't think battery storage on a massive scale will ever be practical and environmentally acceptable, but I am willing to be proven wrong. Tax relief will be required (probably) for the investment required for such a massive change. However, we have to mean it when we make this a national priority equivalent to (or larger than) the race to the moon. That will get us there. Diddling around the edges as we have been doing will not.