Me thinks, yikes that's cause for pause, many posting on this thread are on the left coast.
I think, as most people think that solar is a great idea, but they don't care for what you go through to have solar panels and their looks, reliability and cost. It's expensive for the average household. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but there are many utility companies that aren't set up to deal with the buy back of unused electric from your system. Look at all the solar companies who are involved in the business that have gone broke even with govt. subsidies.
As for oil companies, most are deeply involved in alternative energy. If they don't they will one day in the not too distant future being out of business. There was a Texas billionaire, who made his money in the oil industry who about 2-3 yrs. ago spent over a billion $ of his own money to build wind farms from Texas up into the Dokotas, the plains states. Unfortunately he wasn't able to get enough utility companies to invest in grids to get the wind energy hooked into the electrical grids to make use of the wind energy. I just had the name come to me, Boone Pickins was the billionaire. My point is that there are companies that want to get the alternative energy industry going but, most people aren't ready to demand to the energy sector to get it going in a big way I feel.
I read the CUESA article and have to say they cherry picked the most extreme instances to make their case. For many yrs. I'd say at least 40 yrs. people have been getting a large portion of their eats from local/regional markets/growers. I don't live in Texas but, their are many roads that are called F/M (farm to market) roads. They've been called such for a long time. An F/M road is a road that the state would normally not allow big trucks to travel on due to weight restrictions. Most of these f/m roads ate only two lanes and have a weight restriction altered/raised to apprx. 56,000 lbs.
To me, it makes no sense for the U.S. and Canada to knock ourselves out and be poorer in the immediate future to place large restrictions on carbon emissions as the world keeps on doing what it's been doing since the industrial age. Not only that, but the cattle on this planet are the largest contributor to nasty emissions and that would have to be dealt with imo, to see significant reduction in green house gases first.
The electric Chevy Volt has been poorly marketed, too pricey and from what I've read/seen too unreliable. When they first came out they were priced over $40k. Yes, the price is dropping as most new innovations do but, that car shouldn't have been brought to market until the price was in the mid $30k's to buy. It was a darn joke at the price they first wanted for them. As we exchange ideas/thoughts on the matter, Honda, I don't drive one, is producing cars in limited quanities that run on natural gas. That's probably gonna be the way to go ultimately. Eighteen wheelers are in prototype running on natural gas. I don't see a big hurry to change out the freight transportation system as this is really expensive and it is going to raise the prices of all transporting of goods. Estimates I last read was apprx. 10% rise in grocery prices. And we all know how much people are going to complain when food prices rise that much in a short amount of time.
Well my fingers and brain are tired now and a storm is moving in so, I'll leave while I still can w/o negative consequences.
