Rand is an idiot. If someoone tells me to read Ayn Rand, that's a good sign that's someone I don't want to know.

Nukes cannot justify the costs. The risk are too high for the money return, considering the US is sitting atop a century's supply of coal, which can be burned in combination with carbon mitigation. This can meet our needs in the immediate future, without the risk to life and property that is built into nukes and can't be removed. No private insuror will underwrite them, anyway, and the government cannot afford to.

Anyway you look at it Greenspan's an idiot. He thought an economic surplus was bad for the economy because it will increase wages and the government will have too much money therefore we must run constant deficits. With an economic surplus we could have invested in American infrastructure and green energy and weened ourselves off foreign oil thereby improving our national security and increased economic growth.

Now Greenspan has created a recession, a worthless dollar, importing 60% of our oil, etc. When anyone listens to this old coot think about doing the opposite.

I know people here hate Greenspan but a couple of things he says can't be disputed, can they? Capping carbon emissions will lower US economic activity (just go over to China/India and do it, if we are talking Kyoto, it doesn't apply to China/India conveniently) and people will lose jobs. "But we have to be leaders", you mean the U.S. has to be martyrs since they found economic prosperity before other countries.

I'm not a Rand fan but anyone who says they're going to dislike someone for recommending it is just as much a bigot. And lol at Greenspan creating the recession.

He's right! It really doesn't make sense the drive that is getting put behind ethanol. It is ok as a supplemental fuel. For real change though and for real clean air check out what tesla motors is doing.

Greenspan could have recommended that Congress more closely monitor, i.e., regulate the subprime mortgage market, but heaven forbid that the government should do anything to save the great unwashed from greedy speculators. Survival of the fittest and all.

That's great and all, but it makes me why civilization has to be held hostage by "serious" people like Greenspan. We're expected to jump up and down and be excited when he repeats something the rest of us have been warning about for the last 20 years, and could have been working on to fix this whole time.

The fed reserve does not have the American people's best interest at heart anyway. It only looks at the bottom line for the big World Banks. we pay interest to the fed. reserve. What a smokescreen. The national debt is growing at an alarming rate. The big oil is trying to hold onto to their profits anyway they can inspite of fossil fuels causing so much pollution, war etc. It is really evil. Only when we decentralize world energy (e.g. solar, wind etc.) to put the power back into local communities will it by default keep this government somewhat honest. No nukes in Iraq? What a surprise! Now they feed us this crap that we need to stay there because the terrorists will follow us home. Another fallacy. The terrorists are there because we made it an environment for them to be there. The point is that the government spins whatever they want in order to move the masses. Nuclear fuel. Come on! We can do better. The question is better for whom? By the way, these are not conspiracy theories, they are painful truths.

I'm no fan of Greenspan, but he says a few things here that should be obvious to any green who is following the numbers:

Corn-based ethanol is a loser economically & energetically.

Cellulosic ethanol may be a better bet, but is not a certainty.

Electric vehicles are a good bet for the long term; electricity can be produced by many means so EVs don't tie us into one particular fuel source.

If we want to start reducing the production of carbon dioxide soon we need to increase nuclear power production; nuclear could begin growing in 5 to 10 years; solar, wind & low impact hydro aren't going to be producing baseline power for decades (as much as I like them as options).

I know that last point is going to stick in the craw of many greens, but the choice we face today is not between nuclear and renewable, it's between nuclear and coal, with renewable playing a small role for a couple decades. I'd like to see carbon dioxide production slow within the next 5 to 10 years. Nuclear power is the only realistic option.

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Thanks for the well stated line of reasoning.

If I could add a thought....please.

The reason France has nuclear power meeting over 70% of it's demand is because the program was centrally designed with government oversight and operates as a public/private concession.

This demonstrates that it is indeed possible for government to do complex and dangerous things well, first off.

Secondly and most importantly, if the US is to be serious about nuclear power and expand it greatly it will need to follow something closer to the French model, which could only come about if the free market utopian thinking that has dominated public discourse for the last 30 years is changed. Yes people we will have to give government more power.

John,

I think that the US could expand nuclear without moving completely toward the French model. It would require more control by the feds, though, in dictating a limited number of standard reactor designs and setting uniform operating standards. The designers/suppliers of reactors have tried to move in this direction, but I've heard that the utilities are already trying to tweak designs to suit their particular needs and operations. This is one of the economic issues that killed nuclear in the 70s and 80s.