It looks like the USA will need to restart coal fired power plants, and maybe even build a few, and also expand coal mining to keep with the demand for electricity to power electric cars and other form of electric transportation, including trains, planes, and trucks.
A lot more recycled old plant material (i.e. coal) will be needed to produce the steel needed to build more alternative power production devices and towers to carry power and metals to build trucks, rail, wind towers, and solar frames.
One discussion I listened to this week involved construction of a very large electric transmission line from Russia, across the Bearing Strait (above or under the water) and through Alaska and Canada to the lower 48 states. Russia has a surplus of energy which can be sold at high prices to the USA. Russia wants our money!
I read some articles and research papers written in the 1960's that proposed artificially raising the prices of liquid petroleum fuel in the USA high enough to make solar and wind power affordable. The articles did not address where all the excess profits would go which would thus be made. This probably would be leaving those profits to follow the traditional natural pattern to the pockets of the oil company shareholders and leadership. Yes, a lot more income tax paid to the IRS. All this in the name of making solar and wind energy affordable when compared to the new higher price of gasoline, diesel, and other carbon based energy. As President Obama famously said, ..the price of electricity will necessarily skyrocket
In the opinion of some physicists, geophysicists, and environmental engineers, electricity is the future base of energy in the world, and the USA should focus energy goals on producing as much electricity as possible, and at the lowest possible retail price. One of the factors often commented on is to limit and high personal property taxes assessed by states, and their subdivision cities and counties, which have a current major impact on where industry is built, including whether that industry is build in the USA or in other countries, to where USA wealth is then transferred to buy the ;products. The US is outsourcing its capacity to manufacture, invent, research, and protect.
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Ever notice where the origin is of many of our West coast wind and weather comes from.. Look at the satellite cloud maps. The Siberian express weather storms flow off the East coast of Asia, including Russia and China, and often flow along the Southern coast of Alaska, down the coast of Canada and the US. Along the way it often flows eastward across Canada, and the Northern States. If we are lucky, some of those storms flow further South and flow in across California, bringing rain or snow to the western desert states. This is the primary moisture source for the Columbia River and Colorado River watersheds.
We really should pay more attention to the global patterns of weather, economics, & etc. So if we ship our industries to China, then China does not have the pollution controls we have, and therefore the polluted air comes across the Pacific Ocean to North America. So, are we not casing pollution of our air by shipping manufacturing overseas?
Similar events happen in the lower latitudes where caused storms in the Indian Ocean and the African tropics flow East near the Tropical line to form tropical storms and hurricanes in our South Eastern States, and sometimes further north. Those storms flow north and then catch the easterly winds in the north and flow to Northern Europe. A lot of sand put in the air by westerly headed storms in the Sahara Desert of Northern Africa falls out of the air in our South Eastern States, particularly if northerly flowing moisture from the South washes the sand out of the air. Sand in Georgia anyone?
