"Coal generation costs about 6 cents for a kilowatt hour, which is enough electricity to run a hair dryer for an hour. Natural gas generation costs about 9 cents a kilowatt hour, said Reese Tisdale, a senior analyst with the consulting firm Emerging Energy Research. In comparison, 'best case' for power from solar panels is about 25 to 30 cents a kilowatt hour, he said."
Once again Congress hauled energy company executives before
them to blame them for high prices for gasoline and other fuels. As
usual, they were attacked. Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of
Illinois, set the tone:
"You have to sense what you're doing to us - we're on
the precipice here, about to fall into recession. Does it trouble any one
of you - the costs you're imposing on families, on small businesses, on
truckers?"
The “costs you’re imposing” charge said it all.
For once, the oil executives firmly but clearly told Congress that in
large part it was to blame.
The problem is too much world demand and U.S. law and regulations have
constricted supply, thus placing pricing power in the hands of Middle East
nations, Russia and Venezuela. There are hundreds of billions of barrels
of oil in deep water off both the east and west coasts, off the west
coast of Florida and in the Rocky Mountains, to say nothing of ANWR, in
which oil companies are prevented from exploring and drilling.
Patrick Moore, co-founder of GreenPeace, writes andop-ed for the Washington Post promoting nuclear energy, for environmental and geo-political reasons. Cool! He makes a persuasive argument to go nuclear to protect environmental quality, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce the US's dependence on foreign oil. He debunks the myths about nuclear energy - that it's expensive (not), dangerous (compared to coal mining?), the waste will be dangerous for thousands of years (not), and nuclear reactors are vunerable to terrorist attack (watched Fox's 24 lately?). Good sign that some environmentalists are opening up their minds!
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