What’s the vision? To counteract the effects of climate change. Sounds like a great cause. The healthier the planet the better for all mankind. I doubt anyone in the world doesn’t want their children to grow up with a planet that is better than ours is now.
Okay we can all agree on a vision. What’s the best path to get there? First we need to see where we are. Electric cars are great but are we there yet. I’d say no, lots of great work but they still don’t go far enough on a charge and then take to long to charge. Solar and wind, again lots of great work but neither are prime time and both have astonishing limitations. For arguments sake lets assume we need a balanced energy portfolio.
These new technologies are promising and may be the future, but their future is still tomorrow.
So what’s the path forward. Why not balance our energy plan with an eye towards our goal. Not long ago the United States was energy independent. We produced enough fossil fuels so we were not beholden to OPEC and other oil and gas producing nations. We controlled pricing and our destiny. Why not use that as a cornerstone to shape our future. Instead of paying OPEC and others for oil and gas use our resources to shape our future add a fifty cent tax to fund our vision. Just paying more does not help the American people, but perhaps paying more would be acceptable if the money went to improvements we can see.
Instead of taxing to build charging stations we incentivized restaurants to add them. Charging your vehicle while enjoying a meal sounds like a win-win for consumers and retailers. Balancing oil, natural gas, nuclear, solar, and wind energies is the only way to ensure that when energy is needed it will be there. No one idea magically achieves the vision, but we are smart enough to build on many ideas to realize the vision.
The bottomline is a vision is a long term goal and the journey to get there can be a well planned. Mortgaging our children’s futures to try and get there tomorrow is not going to work. Capitalizing on where we are to plan and build the future should.