Here’s a great article on energy policy from The Oil Drum folks: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5002#more
Interesting quotes:
· The stimulus should emphasize manufacturing, not the "consumer economy". The US economic crisis is as much about our inability to finance our trade imbalance in general as it is about any particular import, such as oil. Pumping money into the economy to send it to China for plastic toys and big-screen TVs is just going to drive us further into debt. We are now at the end of our ability to print dollars to buy things; we used to be a country that made things, and we must return to our heritage. This is the only way to create the jobs that will pay, and the improvements that will last.
· Most of the claims made for ethanol are pure marketing hype. … it isn't a solution and was never really intended to be one. Ethanol as it currently exists is a farm subsidy program marketed as an energy program, and it can soak up as much corn as we can grow.
· Between the two technologies of the MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) and IFR (Integral Fast Reactor), the USA's entire inventory of spent nuclear fuel (43,000 tons of uranium as of 2002), depleted uranium (roughly 6 times as much) and thorium (900,000 tons of reserves) become available as domestic fuel reserves. The entire electric demand of the USA could be met with roughly 500 tons per year of this; the entire energy needs of the USA would take perhaps 1500 tons.
