10 year plan

[doc]

I am by no stretch of the imagination, a fan of Al Gore. But, as my old uncle used to say, 'even a blind hog finds an acorn every once in a while'.
Gore has proposed we get off carbon based sources of electricity in 10 years. I believe this is a doable goal. Gore goes on and (of course) brings politics into the proposal, but if you take the idea - no use of oil or coal or oil shale etc to produce electricity in the US within the next 10 years - it makes sense.
The list of potential power sources is extensive. Wind, geo-thermal, tidal, solar, atomic, agricultural. These things, some of which already are producing, have the potential to lower the need to import oil and slow the drain on American resources.
There was a article this AM on one of the net work news shows of a man in California with a dairy farm with 3 thousand cows. He has a system that collects methane from the lagoon where the liquid wastes are stored and this methane runs a generator to produce enough electricity to run the entire farm. Now a dairy with a 3000 cow herd uses an awful lot of power for coolers, pumps, fans, feed augers etc., and this guy is getting it for nothing except his initial investment to cover the lagoon (aboout 3 acres) and pipe the methane to the generator.
The 10 year plan has a doable goal, but we have to use imagination, innovation and determination (sounds like a Jesse Jackson speech doesn't it? ) to make it work.

*doc steps down off soap box*

[doc]

I am by no stretch of the imagination, a fan of Al Gore. But, as my old uncle used to say, 'even a blind hog finds an acorn every once in a while'.
Gore has proposed we get off carbon based sources of electricity in 10 years. I believe this is a doable goal. Gore goes on and (of course) brings politics into the proposal, but if you take the idea - no use of oil or coal or oil shale etc to produce electricity in the US within the next 10 years - it makes sense.
The list of potential power sources is extensive. Wind, geo-thermal, tidal, solar, atomic, agricultural. These things, some of which already are producing, have the potential to lower the need to import oil and slow the drain on American resources.
There was a article this AM on one of the net work news shows of a man in California with a dairy farm with 3 thousand cows. He has a system that collects methane from the lagoon where the liquid wastes are stored and this methane runs a generator to produce enough electricity to run the entire farm. Now a dairy with a 3000 cow herd uses an awful lot of power for coolers, pumps, fans, feed augers etc., and this guy is getting it for nothing except his initial investment to cover the lagoon (aboout 3 acres) and pipe the methane to the generator.
The 10 year plan has a doable goal, but we have to use imagination, innovation and determination (sounds like a Jesse Jackson speech doesn't it? ) to make it work.

*doc steps down off soap box*

[machman72]

Amen to that Doc. I am not a Gore fan either, but the fact is this country is basically an oil and gas junky just like a drug junky. We have got to get ourselves rehabilitated off of the petroleum. Major developments have been made in solar and wind power sources over the last 20 years. All of the other sources you mentioned are extremely viable also. If a man can modify his big deisel truck to run off of waste kitchen oil and drive it across country, then the sky is the limit.
The biggest draw back to this is the fact that BIG OIL, has their BIG HANDS, stuffing BIG DOLLARS into the pockets of 90 % of the politicians on Capital Hill. They have no incentive to make changes, because they would then be losing money themselves. Until the taxpayers of this country find a way to make this government "OF THE PEOPLE" again, rather than the ME ME ME system we have now, things are not going to change. Lord help us if Liberals control the White House.