Well bully for him. Problem is that although he picks Engineers to head up the dept, the Engineer he picked is on board with his stated energy policy of prices "necessarily skyrocketing".... We should continue to invest in research and perfection of green tech, but while that is being developed, it makes NO sense to just stop the current energy sources, and put our own gathering of those sources off limits. That is a recipe for disaster.
j-mac
We aren't stopping anything......more coal plants are being built, likewise more combined cycle gas turbine plants.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/refshelf/ncp.pdf
Coal and Nuclear are base load plants, gas turbines are typically used for peak load demands.
each has its plusses and minuses....coal is dirtiest, gas is cleaner, nuclear is non-polluting. Coal and gas tend to get shut down in very cold weather, as Texas found out this last winter. Gas mains pressure dropped due to home owners having to burn more gas to heat their homes, and the gas turbines couldn't get enough fuel. Coal plants also shut down, altho I haven't heard exactly why, but it had to do with the Texas coal plants not being designed for cold weather. Texas isn't supposed to get that cold.
They had rolling outages, thanks to unanticipated weather extremes.
Nuclear kept going like the energizer bunny.
Green tech is still too far away to be more than a fair weather SUPPLEMENT to our energy needs. It is like burning a few candles to add more light to a room that is already illuminated by a 100W bulb.
Again, Obama was posturing and pandering. Even if he meant what he said, he surely got corrected by those in the know.
There are NO EASY ENERGY ANSWERS, except in the dreams of ignorant people. A little education wouldn't hurt them one bit. Like I said, even the Sierra club is now pro-nuclear. Took them decades to realize it, but Nuclear is the best large source of electricity we have available to us. Wind and solar are nice supplemental sources, but cannot be depended upon in the dark and/or when the wind don't blow.
But the thread is about oil, and so far, the only viable "supplement" is natural gas, and it isn't available everywhere. No way the average citizen will be allowed to fill his own tank, either. Pickens says we should convert all commercial trucks to gas, which would help replace a lot of diesel, but not much gasoline. That would be a very good start.....but so far, the truckers aren't on board.
I wonder why...