How the events in Russia and Bill Clinton link to America’s energy policy

Yes, I agree, absolutely that sadly the time for energy independence isn't now but was during the Clinton-Gore administration. And I also blame Bill CLinton for everything This big creep sold us out to Saddam. President Bush did not lie about about weapons of mass destruction, it was Slick Willie who lied and his betrayal of America was an act of treason.

there is no capitalism without government

Govt could not have done much but made an expensive mess. Govt should just get out of the way and let capitalism find the optimal solution.

You can not win over politiations as they have different agenda than common people. Ones you send them there you have no right to ask them as they are governed by lobies. As every president has there think tank which reads years beyond this may have been on the chalk board for energy independence but it is on board which can be erased by the lobbies. It will be hard to understand that the government reaserch agencies do not have the solutions but things are controlled by politiations which do not have desire. If there is Will there is a Way.

Ever thought how much carbon US soldiers are causing during their missions world over.Its not only detrimental to peace but also for global warming. Call your top guns home

Thank you guys: I'm happy to see that in U.S. always more people are acknowledging how urgent this issue is. Thank you Voice of Truth: if with 200M people U.S can produce the 25% of planetary pollution, there should be a reason somewhere... Thank you casanova2008: young people not always realize that the world they are used to is based on energy And finally, thank you Sojourner: I went through Ezekiel 38-39 and now I'm enlightened: finally I understand why U.S. invaded Iraq ! Would you also address us to the part where Ezekiel tells us if Russia will find mass destructions weapons in Georgia?

Of course the Bush administration is really clean on this....so easy to blame the Clintons for everything.

It's easy. We all pedal to work on a bicycle or work at home. We will eat raw food not cooked food. We will wash our clothes by hands. And last but not least, we will nuke anyone who put their fingers on our oil.

Hmm...comments truncated. There is no silver bullet; only combinations of plain bullets that, when combined, will advance the target. We also have to be rigorous about scientific peer review and economic analysis. Rigor won't be respected in some quarters; too many folks have substituted opinions for facts and emotions for logic. We have to be steadfast against those kinds of attitudes. I agree with Sojourner that someday God will ring down history's curtain. Until that day comes, I obey Him and His Son. Part of that obedience is to practice engineering as I have described it, and not be led by emotions to junk science.

All: The one place engineers can specifically help is to be utterly rigorous about all of the science, particularly where our own convictions are concerned. Question everything. Separate fact from assumptions. Find all sources of error in math models and calibrate the accuracy of the models based on the potential cumulative error. Sift every potential energy source and sink for its true cost. As you look for solutions, remember to look for serendiptious combinations of solutions. There is no silver bullet

It all boils down to the golden rule. Those with the gold, make the rules. In this case, black-gold.

Project Independence? That was started in 1974 under the auspices of the newly created Federal Energy Office, which morphed into the Federal Energy Agency, which morphed in the Department of Energy. The "solution" has not been found because the technology did not exist then, it has not been invented in the intervening years and despite the protestations of the Eco-hippies, it does not exist now. The level of "pain" for the U.S. to reduce fossil fuel to the required threshold is just too great. Though we did not sign up for the Kyoto fraud, one only need look at the ever-widening target-miss of those who did, to comprehend how poorly the entire problem, top to bottom, is understood, particularly by the political hacks trying to hang their hat on it to pay the mortgage. Until that hoped for quantum leap in technology, as M. Simon hints, there''s ANWR, off-shore and nuclear... like it or not!

I'm moderately well hooked into energy VC circles. There is more VC money than good projects. If we want to squeeze Russia now: drill, drill, drill. Or we can prop up world energy prices by keeping American oil in the ground and off the market.

The political banter about what happened 30 years ago is not very productive today. What is important is that people really must "suck it up" - buy compact fluorescents and energy star appliances, drive less, adjust the thermostat, and do big-picture things like better-insulated homes (including low e glass) and more fuel-efficient cars when that decision next comes up in the budget. Telecommuting is a win-win if you can do it. Oh, and buy solar panels. Conservation requires much more than a pocket-book or ROI approach. It is a state of mind. Some will call you cheap. I will say that you have the right state of mind. That way we can have our cake and eat it too. Sugar-free frosting isn't all that bad, after all.

There was once a Georgia politician who commented that the solution to getting prisoners to work was to "get a better grade of prisoner". David Letterman likes to run clips of Jimmy Carter lashing out from his bully pulpit in the Oval Office, in comparison presumably to GB who comes across as a oratorical bumbler. So we get reminded of Jimmy's "Malaise" speech. When I hear this again it suggests to me that Mr. Carter wanted a "better grade of American citizen". In that respect he isn't much different from Lester Maddox, his predecessor as Georgia governor. Most people probably can't explain why Jimmy got bumped (other than the Iranian mess), but I can explain it in a heartbeat. Even when I hear him in interviews on TV with the talk show hosts, I take offense at his attitude. Reagan wasn't much of an improvement, but he did more than Jimmy would have in a second term, on the energy front as well as many others.

All we can do in engineering is delay the inevitable by developing energy conserving products and finding more energy sources. Any thinking person who honestly looks at the situation we?re in and extrapolates out the trends would have to conclude we are rapidly headed toward a culmination of history. It is popular to scoff at the Bible but our developing situation fits very well into what the Bible says is going to happen. Those who are open to the idea that there is a God who can declare the end from the beginning should take a very close look at Ezekiel 38-39 which explains exactly why Russia invaded Georgia. This will be a fruitless exercise for all who are caught up in the cult of materialism.

at the consumer level, higher gas taxes are the solution. everything else is just BS, incl. CAFE standards, rebates and assorted cowardly patch-solutions. but good luck seeing a politician asking for that ! (and duly note that Clinton''s current stance is not the same as when he was president) at the business level it''s probably a gas tax of some sort, as cap-n-trade is too speculative. until it cost more, why save ?

I have long predicted that someday, anyone who resists sacrificing American troops for oil will be branded a traitor. I think we are closer to that day. For the 99% of American families who have no one in the military, soldiers are cheaper than solar panels and hybrid cars. Much cheaper. In fact, wars have become free, or even better than free, because we wage them with borrowed money and we get another tax cut for each new war. Therefore, free-market forces favor wars for oil, not finding alternatives to oil.

I hope all of you that like to remember Carter's years of "enlightenment" recall that he killed the nuclear breeder program just as it was about to begin. That was a disaster for our country!

Tasos and others that liek to call America an energy-wasting country, I have a few questions for you. What kind of gas mileage do you get on your vehicle(s)? How many kilowatthours of electricity/cubic feet of gas/gallons of water do you use in your home(s) each month? Do you go on vacations to places that "waste" energy? How many e-waste-causing television sets do you own? Do you use only fluorescent lighting? If you have kids, are you one of the ones that sits in long lines outside the schools in the morning and afternoon to drop off/pick up your kid(s), even though bus service is provided? Do you often drive to get your meals rather than eat at home? Are you into fuel-hogging activities like motosports (land/water/air)? Is your home filled with products that are build in uberpolluting countries like China, and then shipped half-way around the world before landing in your local WalMart via train/diesel-burning trucks? Do you know everything you have that is made of plastic or rubber comes from petroleum? Where do you think the energy comes from to make this economy run? My guess, unless you are ultra-exceptional, is that you are personally as piggish as you accuse everyone else as being. You stop your excessive consumption of petroleum-based resources before admonishing the rest of us.

People don''t like to be told that they can''t have their cake and eat it too. That''s one of the reasons Carter was voted out, and Reagan was voted in. Reagan blew lots of sunshine up our you-know-whats, whereas Carter told us we had to take our medicine. Human nature chooses short-term gain and long-term pain every time. Unless the populace chooses to make sacrifices, politicians can only do so much to change things.

When Carter was talking up this problem he was voted out of office and by the way Clinton was not in power 20/30 years ago. The truth is that we "the people" elect the government and we "the people" choose with our dollars. The only way for us to switch our energy appetites is for energy to be expensive. If we account for pollution, medical expenses on allergies and respiratory problems, wars, peace keeping, subsidies to oil and utility companies etc. the cost of oil would rise to perhaps more than $300 per barrel. That is the price we should pay for oil. Do that and see how quickly us Americans turn from energy wasters to energy efficient.

I remember political leaders 20 or 30 years ago giving a lot of lip service to energy independence. It was all the rage to say that sort of thing after the oil embargos in the 70s, and it's been a relevant and debated topic ever since. So it's not that there's not been foresight. It's that there's not been political or public will. Easy availability of cheap energy drove a behavior of consumption. Increasing energy costs will also increase political and public will for alternatives, but they'll both evaporate if energy costs fall again.

Politicians can make mandates all day, but, as is pointed out, someone somewhere has to actually do the work. Government agencies are stuffed with people that have been hired to fill slots, even if they have no ability whatsoever to do anything about the problem. Having government simply ignore the energy problem was viewed by a lot of people as a mandate to take matters into their own hands, which is now yielding a basket of solutions, crude and late as they are. Market forces are making the renewable technologies cost effective, but it was decades of patient experimentation, trial, and error that got us to this point. We are watching RE grow by orders of magnitude, and it only has to grow one more order of magnitude to overrun the 'fossil' fueled incumbents. No one has given much thought to what the world will look like afterwards (I would put the point of equilibrium about five years out, or 2013). We may find the follow-on effects quite shocking.