Vision is important in politics. This year’s election makes that perfectly clear. I believe in a lot of ways Obama’s election hinged on his ability to communicate his vision and to convince the American public that it is the right vision.
Another important issue is Energy policy. Even though the importance of this issue seems to be directly correlated to gas prices. The coverage of this issue is also correlated to Al Gore’s popularity, although this relationship is less strong.
In statistical terms:
corr(energy coverage, gas prices) > corr(energy coverage, Al Gore popularity) > 0
Anyway, this morning I was walking outside in the cold and started combining these two concepts – Vision and Energy.
I came up with a very fundamental and simple question: Do you envision America as a nation run on solar panels and windmills?
My answer to this question is ‘No’. We are the largest economy in the world. Here are some GDP figures from the World Bank:
1 United States 13,811,200
2 Japan 4,376,705
3 Germany 3,297,233
4 China 3,280,053
5 United Kingdom 2,727,806
*In millions of dollars
Nearly 14 trillion dollars. When we talk about economic growth each year, we are talking about a $14 trillion behemoth growing at 3-5%. (Granted we may be shrinking a bit now). That is insane! That’s about $700 billion dollars each year.
I just can’t picture this nation running on solar and wind power. At least not for a long time. We’re going to need coal. Of course, it would be optimal to find a cleaner way to burn it, but we need the energy it produces. In my opinion, we should invest in nuclear power for its availability, reliability, and cleanliness.
I’m curious how others envision the American energy landscape in the next 10 years? Can we achieve, as Al Gore believes, a perfectly carbon-neutral energy industry without nuclear power?
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