04-18-2011, 04:28 PM
Steamtrains Wrote:"America has plenty of energy to meet its needs; it also has a president who refuses to allow any of it to be used."
Could you elaborate on this..?? I'm aware that the President is actively promoting the use of alternative (non-polluting) sources of energy, but don't recall any ban on the use of any of the traditional sources. Please enlighten me.
As to the cost... I recently changed to a power provider that gets its power from non-polluting sources. The cost is about $0.03/kilowatt hr. LESS than what I had been paying before.
Since you specifically asked:
Coal-fired power plants are being forced to shut down in order to avoid the increased costs of meeting the EPA's new standards, dictated by Obama's mistaken belief in global warming. We just lost the power plant in Canon City because "it would cost too much to retro-fit it", after yet another major irate increase and more increases to come to pay for the new power plant many miles away. The local plant has explored refitting, but states it will have to raise rates again to even pay for the work, let alone providing power. Lose-lose n that one.
Obama promised to build at least fifty new nuclear power plants in America to reduce the need for fossil fuels. Number built? Zero.
Wind and solar power will not provide more than a mere fraction of the energy needs of America, and hydro-power is pretty much maxed out.
Finally, although Obama encourages other nations, and even loans them money, to drill in the Gulf, he has yet to permit any American oil companies from drilling even into known new deposits. I'm sure you have been to gas pump recently and know exactly how this policy is affecting you. As a consequence, natural gas is going up as well, and the prices of all goods and services are increasing as a result as well. We live in an oil-driven and coal supplemented society.
To those who say that the only thing we have in common on this forum is model trains, I disagree.
We all live in the very real world around us. To avoid acknowledging that fact is the height of folly. We might be First lass passengers on the TITANIC, but it's the only ship we have, and we're all in it together.
Besides, we run our layouts with electrical energy, right?