Modern Day Energy

Vermont wrestles with renewables vs. nukes. Astonishing that a nuclear cooling tower would have been supported by wooden beams, but they've now been replaced by plastic ones. The one plant supplies a third of the state's power. Ultra-greenies want to switch to alternative power, but even the NY Times points out the obvious:

Not counting dams, another low-emission energy source that many environmental groups oppose, renewable power makes up 2.5 percent of the nation’s electricity generation. That figure is higher in Vermont, 6 percent, but renewables are still a long way from supplying the bulk of the state’s power. [snip]

Even as some Vermonters argue for more renewable power, proposals to build it have hit snags.

Vermont has only one commercial wind farm, 11 turbines along a mountain ridge. They have less than 1 percent of the capacity of Vermont Yankee, a relatively small nuclear plant.

Other proposed projects have been stalled by local opposition. One wind project would infringe on bear habitat. Another won approval from state regulators, but a local group filed a court appeal to block it.

Perhaps the solution is just to go off the grid. But in the odd world of liberals, roughing it may just mean making do at your second home.(or putting large solar panels on the roof of your large addition)

What is to be done? For one thing, let's not go overboard with global warming hysteria--which is frankly all too often an excuse for Leftist social engineering, with all the predictable costs in human suffering.

Food prices are up, gas prices as well. Demand is up, but supply has been constrained--and it's the do-gooder Dems and some soft-headed Republicans who are responsible for this mess. They are doing nothing to alleviate the crisis they have created by diverting food crops to meet ethanol mandates, or by putting vast areas of our country off limits to our own exploration, drilling and refining. No, the talk is of rationing, rather than embracing clean and safe nuclear power, which many Americans already wisely approve of.

At least one of the politicos campaign stunts has backfired, and thousands have signed this petition this week.

Maybe America is finally ready to deal realistically with these issues, but we'll have to wrestle candidates from both parties to the ground on this one. And as for bear habitat, where's a modern day Davy Crockett when we need him? Could be a her.

P.S. Please, not that!