Clean up other countries but allow us to continue pollution.


Such as all those reserves for the disappearing SUVs.


Why? The train engineer still had to give up his shovel despite the abundance of coal.

Nevertheless, the average American mileage is only 90 per week.

Is that a Polish joke applied to Belgium?  

Miles per week? Try about 200+ - 12k/52 = 231. The 12k is the "low" side of an average car usage.

But regardless, America (and Canada which is just as bad per capita) is very spread out. Europe is packed in.

Here is where we disagree. First if we have the ability to pull more oil out of the ground it will reduce the price of gas. Speculators are betting that the supply will remain stable or fall off so they bet that the price will go up in the future. If more oil enters the market they will be stuck paying more for oil then it will be sold for on the open market. They lose a lot of money. 600 billion at last count. With cheaper oil and gas the economy will have more disposable income allowing companies to make more money and hire more workers and make more products.

Although alternatives are available none are going to solve the problem. Solar is good in some places nuclear is good in most places wind is a disaster and burns more oil than not having them at all.

Until we have a nuclear powered train they will continue to run on diesel fuel. Electric trains are not feasible for long haul travel. You can’t have air travel without jet fuel. There are no electric air planes that carry passengers. So for long distance travel you still have to have petro fuel.

Power plants require oil, or coal because we have not exploited nuclear power. If we started yesterday to build one it would take 10 to 25 years before the first volt of electricity would be sold.

Wind power, everyone without a brain wants wind power. Did you know that for wind powered generators to work you have to have an oil fired power plant running and burning fuel because wind is not constant or predictable? When the wind turbines turn they produce electricity but when the wind stops the oil fired power plants kick in. since it takes about six hours to get one fired up they have to keep them running day and night to supply electricity and the power generated by the wind is sold on the grid to help buy more fuel.

Solar power requires one thing that is hard to get and very expensive. Sand! Silicon dioxide if you want the scientific name. The same silicon used in making computer chips. The best quality silicon is used to make both computer chips and solar fuel cells. Because there is more demand than supply the price keeps going up. I was speaking to a producer of solar power cells last January and he told me that they now have a power cell that can generate as much power at a 12 inch square as they used to need a three yard square. The problem is that they need high quality silicon and computer chip makers have cornered the market on it. That’s right the “evil” computer companies are keeping us from having cheap solar power.

The problem with solar power is it only works in sunlight and when the sun goes down so does your electricity. For nigh time you need dirty batteries that pollute the planet to store energy to use when the sun is not shining. Once again solar power is not reliable because if you have a cloudy day you don’t get as much energy.

So all the alternative fuels and power sources are not as great at they are touted to be, and the only reliable power source we have is oil. Had we not stopped building nuclear power plants in the 70’s we would have been able to convert most of our coal and oil fired power plants to nuclear plants and reduced a lot of pollution. Tell me what alternative power sources are there that is available and reliable? Until we have that we have to drill and keep drilling for oil. you may not like it but what choice do we have?

That says it all, and is why congress is so freaking clueless! SPeculators do not control the odds, they bet them! The good ones do so intelligently. The bad ones lose. But in the end, they have as much effect on price as the gopher rats do.

In simple terms - speculators do not control the price. As they are just bidding on future contracts that SOMEONE has to use. They can bid up the price to a gazillion dollars, but if no one is going to pay that for the actual product, they lose.

Just a clarification: Diesel trains power electric motors that drive the trains, this makes them very efficient. I do know what you were getting at though, electrified rails of some sort and agree. just wanted to point that out for readers that might not have known.

Yes a total blunder--like Gov. Cuomo buying a plant for $1 then demolishing an extraordinary state of the art nuclear power plant.  

Thanks to Jimmah Cawtaw.

Where did you get this statistic?

I only work 6 miles from home - that's very very close for a typical American.  That's 60 miles just during the work week assuming I only go to and from work.  And I'm no where near average.

The "average" American drives about 12,000 miles per year. About what I drive every month.

The nit has been picked.   



President James Earl Carter Jr. a part of the nuclear Navy with tons of knowledge of nuclear reactors allowed our ability to deal with the fuel crisis of his time to dwindle to nothing. He stopped drilling, he stopped the nuclear industry. But he was a man of peace.

I concede it's a stretch; it's probably calculated as percapita driver rather than vehicle. That is, you might drive six miles and your wife ten. If the vehicle averages 200 miles p/wk for two drivers it's halved.

I think you may have brushed the truth - per capita. Meaning every many woman and child. Since children dont drive, that does lower it somewhat - not including truckers.

Insurance companies figure your rates based on 12000 miles a year. I walked to work for three years meaning my yearly mileage came out to 600 miles a year and they still figured it on 12000, miles.