In "This is War" below, Art Sammler offers an interesting point that I agree with, but gives no rationale (unlike other sections which he quotes): "We can finally act like adults about nuclear energy."

In fact, the real issue with nuclear energy is twofold. First, there are a bunch of ecological crazies (the same ones who would oppose a coal plant, or oil plant, or anything but their pet projects) who pop up to "protest" whenever a new nuclear energy plant is proposed. The end result is that getting a nuclear energy plant is a nightmare. This despite the fact that nuclear energy is the cleanest of all fuel-based energy technology.

The second problem - nuclear waste - is only a problem because of the Worst President in the History of the US, one Jimmy Carter. On April 7, 1977, Carter banned nuclear waste reprocessing in the US on the theory that it would "encourage" rogue nations like Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, China, Russia, and others not to reprocess fuel and thus stave off the threat of nuclear arms falling into their hands. Whoops! Score one for Clueless Carter.

The end result is that instead of a responsible nuclear energy program, the US has a limping one, and the crazies searching for so-called "renewable" energy resources have been going gonzo, Al Gore among them. The problem is that every one of their so-called "renewable" resources either has a significant drawback, reliability issues, or just doesn't work.

#1 - One of the least talked-about ideas (mostly because people figured out the low gains it provides) is tidal power; when the tide comes in, and when it goes out, the water level in a tank rises, and the intake/outflow of water causes turbines to spin. The problem? It takes a ton of beach space, reliable placing of the pipes, a LOT of maintenance (salt water causes corrosion and builds up clogging deposits fairly regularly), and generally doesn't produce all that much energy. Plus, while it's "regular" in that nobody can stop the tides, a storm swell can overload it and it only produces meaningful power during an active tidal shift.

#2 - Solar power. For a lot of low-power uses, it's become commonplace; you'll see it on crossing signs in rural neighborhoods, warning lights, powering lighthouses, and occasionally installed on someone's house. The problem for solar power production on a mass scale, however, is not to be taken lightly. First of all, the production of any silicon-based items (yes, including the boards in your computer) produces a lot of toxic waste that needs to either be denatured or disposed of somewhere. Now imagine enough silicon to cover your roof. There you go; lots of toxic waste to deal with.

Second, solar power just isn't that efficient yet. The normal solar cells available today, we're talking production-level that consumers can buy, are around 12% efficient. In the lab, 20% has been achieved, but getting that into mass production will take a long time. Solar power fanatics like to talk about the theoretical gains if they got "everyone" to put solar cells on their rooftop, but they fail to factor in the fact that at least half of those cells would be getting less-than-direct sunlight for at least half the day (e.g. overnight), they fail to consider the cost of maintaining the panels on everyone's house through rain, sleet, hail, squirrels, pooping birds... in short, the idea of blanketing everyone's roof in solar cells is probably not feasible.

Plus, just wait for a couple days of rain and heavy cloud cover. If you're relying on solar power, better hope you've got a backup.

#3 - Hydrogen. Early in his term, Bush liked to talk about the "hydrogen economy" that would replace oil. This was one of the first indications Bush doesn't know what the heck he's talking about - hydrogen, while naturally occurring, does not just get harvested. You either need to extract it from the air, or produce it from hydrogen-bearing molecules (such as water). Doing either takes energy, usually more energy than you get back from burning the hydrogen. Net result? Hydrogen is not a source of power, it's just a storage medium for transferring generated power. You still have to generate the power somewhere. Cross this one off your list.

#4 - Geothermal. In certain areas, this could work - but again, the maintenance can be a problem, and it's not usable everywhere.

#5 - The worst of all: Biofuels. Worse than snake oil, but they keep popping up thanks to the corn lobby.

Why are these the worst? Because they come with so high a cost - and not just in money. The US has gone to a mere 10% insertion of Ethanol into cars. As a result, fully half of the US's corn crop has gone to producing Ethanol. The result so far is that the cost of corn has gone up, and with it the price of meat and dairy products. Milk, healthy staple of childrens' diets, is over $3/gallon and climbing.

Meanwhile, the Ethanol has been cutting fuel efficiency, and as a corrosive agent it's devastating to internal combustion engines. It rots fuel lines, leaves nasty deposits in combustion chambers and valves, and clogs injectors, causing maintenance headaches. You may have noticed how many gas stations and service shops are carrying "engine treatments" and "injector cleaners" that are injected either into the oil or fuel reservoir? Ethanol is the reason why; combusted ethanol leaves a gummy residue behind. A car on 10% Ethanol gasoline can "run", but the best numbers I've seen have it dying or requiring engine replacement a full 50,000 miles sooner than a car on standard gas.

The net gain from Ethanol? Zero. Yes, the emissions look better "per gallon", but by the time you spend the extra 10% of fuel, the emissions per mile are about the same.

At the same time, it currently takes more than 1 unit of energy to grow, harvest, and transport 1 unit of energy (in the form of corn-based Ethanol) to the pump to go into a gas tank. A net loss of energy.

If someone did manage to get "cellulosic ethanol" working - ethanol made not from the fruit and edible portions of plants, but the "leftovers", the stems and other portions, it could get better but it's still not great.

I applaud people who are searching for alternative energy sources, but anytime I see one of them talking about how their pet one is "THE" cure for energy needs, I have to roll my eyes. Perhaps, one day, we'll get there - but as Sammler said, we really ought to be acting like adults about Nuclear energy, which is not "THE" cure either but is much better than coal/oil/gas for energy production.

The Prince of Wales has apparently decided that present global warming rhetoric is overly restrained:

Britain can lead the fight against climate change using the same spirit of grit it displayed in World War Two, Prince Charles told business leaders on Tuesday.
.... “Just think what they did in the last war,” he said, referring to Britain’s allied victory against Germany. “Things that seemed impossible were achieved almost overnight.”
.... And he used the date to recall his days in Britain’s navy, and evoke the urgent danger posed by climate change.
“When I was serving in the Royal Navy ... “May Day, May Day, May Day” was the distress call used in cases of emergency. It still is - and this is an emergency we face.”

If we are in a war, then we should act accordingly. What are our weapons?
We can actively sequester carbon, as suggested by Gregory Benford:

Yearly, we manage through agriculture far more carbon than is causing our greenhouse dilemma.
Take advantage of that. The leftover corn cobs and stalks from our fields can be gathered up, floated down the Mississippi, and dropped into the ocean, sequestering it. Below about a kilometer depth, beneath a layer called the thermocline, nothing gets mixed back into the air for a thousand years or more. It's not a forever solution, but it would buy us and our descendents time to find such answers. And it is inexpensive; cost matters.

We can reduce the albedo of polar regions, by seeding the high atmosphere with extremely fine particles:

He suggests suspension of tiny, harmless particles (sized at one-third of a micron) at about 80,000 feet up in the stratosphere. These particles could be composed of diatomaceous earth. "That's silicon dioxide, which is chemically inert, cheap as earth, and readily crushable to the size we want," Benford says. This could initially be tested, he says, over the Arctic, where warming is already considerable and where few human beings live. Arctic atmospheric circulation patterns would mostly confine the deployed particles around the North Pole. An initial experiment could occur north of 70 degrees latitude, over the Arctic Sea and outside national boundaries. "The fact that such an experiment is reversible is just as important as the fact that it's regional," says Benford.

We can fertilize part of the ocean, increasing its uptake of atmospheric carbon:

The idea is similar to planting forests full of carbon-inhaling trees, but in desolate stretches of ocean. “This is organic gardening, not rocket science,” said Russ George, the chief executive of Planktos, the company behind the WeatherBird II project. “Can it possibly be as easy as we say it is? We’re about to find out.”
For Mr. George, this is not just science and environmentalism but business, possibly big business.

We can finally act like adults about nuclear energy.

These and other solutions are there for the finding. The situation is well summarized by the awesome Jonathan Rauch:

climate change is real and deserves action, but...the problem is nowhere near as overwhelming as the rhetoric commonly suggests, and the solutions nowhere near as difficult. As problems go, in fact, climate change appears to be one of the most convenient that humankind has ever faced.

Or, of course, we could do what Prince Charles, George Monbiot, and their millions of followers are suggesting, and fight global warming by reducing output, or even humanity itself, flirting with a New Dark Age of economic and scientific stagnation, suffocation of freedom, and zero-sum contention for resources that need not even remain scarce.

Saturday Night Live got one absolutely right last night. And I can't really add anything to it.

One of the things I do once or twice a year (about once a year on average) is drive back home to visit my parents. For many people, this is no big deal.

For me, it's the 1200 mile journey from Houston to Milwaukee. But even with gas prices as high as they are, the cost compares favorably to flying, and I get a lot more cargo space to work with, as well as not having to rent or beg the use of a car while I'm there.

A few observations on the states traveled:
Texas - I live here. It's nice enough heading up TX-59, mostly. Watch out for the construction. Oh, and about the whole "Drive friendly" thing... someone needs to remind your average Texan about it.
Arkansas - One of the things scientists have discovered is that without any concrete detail or differentiating moments to latch on to, the human brain tends to compress a given long experience into about 8 seconds in terms of memory. Arkansas, therefore, takes 8 seconds to cross. In reality, it takes about 5 hours.
Missouri - BumpbumpbumpbumpBumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpBumpBump.....
Illinois - For most of the journey? "I hope that's the road, and not my alignment going." In Chicago? Hell beyond hell. At least in Texas when they have a toll road, they give you the (admittedly slightly slower) alternative of driving on a working feeder. In Chicago, if you want to get to Wisconsin, you either drive a full hour out of your way, or you pay about $6 worth of tolls. Your corrupt officials at work, folks.
Wisconsin - Ah, home sweet JESUS WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO THE TOWN?! (Let's just say my old hometown's grown a bit).

Also, a Google Maps exercise.
Take Google Maps driving directions generator, and map from Houston, TX to Milwaukee, WI. You'll see that the route given goes from Houston, to Marshall, over to Shreveport, back to Texarkana, over to West Memphis, up to St. Louis, and then finally to Chicago and then Milwaukee.

Now, map in series. Map from Houston to Texarkana (cuts Shreveport out of the equation). Map from Texarkana to Milwaukee and poof, St. Louis drops out as well - the route now correctly uses I-57, which goes straight diagonally right up Illinois.

Total time saved: approximately 4-5 hours drive. Google Guys, your driving direction algorithm needs some tuning up.

When a car is parked on the side of a freeway, the police will often tack an orange sticker on the car as a warning. This serves to both let the person know that their car may be towed and then if it's seen later it can go ahead and be towed because they were warned. Seems useful, but there's one problem with the stickers: They are nigh impossible to remove. These are not just stickers, these are super-stickers with holding-elephents-over-the-Grand-Canyon strength superglue. While driving you will often see the remains of these stickers on a window of a car. Half of it's torn off but the rest isn't. You can bet that they didn't voluntarily leave it that way.

So with this in mind, I know from experience that it costs $100-200 or so to replace a windshield and $50-100 to get back a car that's been towed.

Why don't they just go ahead and tow the sucker?

Or am I missing something about the orange stickers? I've never had one on my car. Is there a secret to getting those things off that some people just don't know about?