Why is it many European countries are a step-ahead and a euro richer than Americans?
From NYT: The Energy Challenge
Move Over, Oil, There’s Money in Texas Wind
…Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.
The United States recently overtook Spain as the world’s second-largest wind power market, after Germany, with $9 billion invested last year. A recent study by Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass., projected $65 billion in investment from 2007 to 2015….Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado and Oregon, states with smaller populations than Texas, all get 5 to 8 percent of their power from wind farms, according to estimates by the American Wind Energy Association.

Here’s the kicker; Much of the boom in the United States is being driven by foreign power companies with experience developing wind projects, including Iberdrola of Spain, Energias de Portugal and Windkraft Nord of Germany. Foreign companies own two-thirds of the wind projects under construction in Texas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02…..3wind.html

The US dollar Federal Reserve Note is the epitome of america’s lack of vision and insatiable greed “In GOD we (the Illuminati) trust”
Gold
Oil
Drugs

Natural-gas and renewable power projects have leapt ahead of coal in the development pipeline, according to Global Energy Decisions, a Boulder, Colo., energy information supplier. Gas and renewables each show more than 70,000 megawatts under development compared with about 66,000 megawatts in the coal-power pipeline.

This year could diminish coal’s future prospects even more. Wall Street investment banks last month said they will now evaluate the cost of carbon emissions before approving power plants, raising the bar much higher for new coal projects, analysts say.

“What you’re seeing is a de facto moratorium on coal power right now,” says Robert Linden, a senior oil and gas analyst at Pace Global in New York. “You turn off the money spigot, you’ve turned off those plants.”

Mebbe that’s my problem. heh. I could have sworn he was up this year.

Well, at least we’ve got ONE terrific Senator from OH so far. Delighted with Sherrod Brown’s energy, commitment & follow-through.

Thanks for the course correction. I shall attempt to adjust my feeble brain so it can calm down a tad. ;->

more for them.

all i was trying to do was point out that there is a huge gaping hole still left in the process of ridding ourselves of coal powered plants.

the new rules sound nice, but in reality, isn’t going to affect much here.

where 8/9 of them are going to be put in place, soon.

That is just brilliant! It also shows what we’re capable of as a nation if we ever get serious about alternative energy sources and vehicles.

This is just one idea. Imagine if we had a White House and Congress that embraced this issue as JFK did reaching the moon.

It would but the fear of (whomever they pray to) in OPEC and immediately drive prices down for the rest of us.

As a side note, why people who live in the Southwest (that can afford it) don’t have carports with sun panels and electric vehicles that can run using this energy I’ll never understand.

When Mother Nature has her fill of our antics, she will slough us off like a dog shakes off fleas

Exactamundo!

See George Carlin.

Compare what they in Europe fork over for gallon (or litre) of gasoline to what we in the U.S. pay.

Like I said up top, internalize profit, externalize cost. We here in America are not paying the full cost of a gallon of gas at the pump. We are paying for our gas with our health insurance premiums (cancers and other health problems caused by the use of petroleum and it’s by-products), and through our state and local taxes (environmental cleanup, court costs, etc). The oil companies have made record profits for at least the last 7 or 8 years. They’ve internalized their profits. The oil companies also are not paying for what their products are costing society. We do. That’s externalizing costs.