They never get asked “Are you saying that the government should seize Pittsburg by eminent domain for the coal underneath it?” This despite the fact that they are including that coal in their numbers.

How bad would it have to be for us to level the Appalachians?

Several problems. First and foremost the people who get employment and their sense of self from fossil fuel installations will not welcome their replacements. Second, capitalism and competition hobble fusion programs as various individuals seeking the brass ring, keep their discoveries to themselves. We need one, you’ll pardon the expression, government run program such as the one that gave us the atomic bomb, if fusion is to succeed. The capitalist paradign of programs all over the place won’t do it.

There’s probably enough electricity in a bucket of sea water to power a medium sized house for a year…

I’m going to have to assume that you’re talking about nuclear fusion here. While I agree that this would be the best solution for energy production, it is not currently possible. Further, I don’t think it’s from lack of trying. There are many, many, high-powered, well funded reasearch programs pursuing this very goal.

The scientific team that manages feasible cold fusion will literally go down in the history books as changing the face of mankind.

The culprit is capitalism which locks us into the status quo. When you are employed in a fossil fuel plant, you resist nuclear or anything that threatens your situation. Nuclear plants that boil water to make steam to turn turbines are like swatting a fly with a baseball bat. There’s probably enough electricity in a bucket of sea water to power a medium sized house for a year, but we put our resources into Iraq and other bastions of empire.

We are crazy, and I mean that in the literal sense. We are suicidal collectively for the same reasons individuals are suicidal. Inferiority drives our world. Nothing will change until we rouse ourselves to address that. As for resources, there’s plenty. We have only to learn to ask Mother Nature nicely.

the air space would have to be restricted, any plane enetering that airspace would have to be addressed with military escort, this means the area must be patrolled and monitored by the military, an expense that the provider will not pay for, we will

We have nuclear power plants in this country. Do we do this now?

then there’s the real estate that is depreciated because it’s hard to sell property near a nucelar plant, that’s another expense that the provider doesn’t pay for, including lost tax revenue

I would suggest that these are not energy costs. They are prejudice costs brought on by people’s uninformed hysteria about nuclear power.

The reactor designs available now are much safer and more efficient than the outdated reactors in use in this country today.
But we haven’t built any of these designs because of people’s uninformed hysteria about nuclear power.

By switching to a Thorium system rather than Uranium (which takes miniscule retrofitting) less waste would be produced and fuel would last longer, increasing the power ratio. But the US hasn’t really put much time or effort into pursuing these kinds of advancements because of people’s uninformed hysteria about nuclear power.

James Lovelace Lovelock