SD R, I have spent some time camping and hiking in the various California and Utah deserts. I have developed a regard for their beauty, for the public good represented by the natural state of these deserts, and for their fragility.
I agree that if we have to rely heavily on solar power, then we need to identify the areas where it makes the most sense. By that I mean generating the most power with the least transmission loss, for the least environmental and aesthetic damage.
I hope Feinstein’s bill doesn’t preclude that sort of rational analysis of any future decision on solar power. For years, we have had no new nuclear power plants. I often wonder if that was the result of a rational decision-making process, or the product of rank populism. I don’t know enough about Feinstein’s bill, or the overall political and planning process to judge, but I hope that somewhere amongst our leaders there are a few who can rise above pandering to narrow interest groups, and propose and push for coherent broad responses to our collective challenges. I suppose I am very naive!
Oh, and the most effective way by far to move from energy dependence on “people who don’t like us very much” is to increase taxes on all energy consumption provided by types of supply that we currently have to import a lot of – mainly oil. So increase taxes per unit of gasoline, home heating oil, jet fuel…. In Europe and Japan, consistent application of this policy over decades has led to economies that use much less power from oil per unit of GDP.
