I'd love to see heavy research in synthetic fuels and other alternative sources. At sixty bucks a barrel of oil and two and a half bucks a gallon for gasoline, I think if any canidate announces they'll support something like this, I'd vote no matter what party he's in. I know the Europeans are living with much higher fuel prices, like seven bucks a gallon gasoline, but I'm confident if we can put a man on the moon, we can develop inexpensive agri-biodiesel and alcohol fuels as well as other alternative sources.

So when the time comes, I'm placing my vote in the party that makes energy priority one for the next decade. While voting, I'd also like to see a stop to all the minutia, seems that's all America's political discussion focuses on these days. Everyone is so concerned about their "rights" - Right to life (or death), right to sex partners, right to pray in public or stop someone else from same, yada, yada, yada. Seems we've forgotten that laws of physics supercede judicially mandated "rights." If you don't have fuel, it doesn't really matter what the judge or the Congress says. You're done, time to learn how to go back to being a hunter/gatherer.

Seriously, I'd love to see us embark on an energy research program in this country on the scale of the space program in the 60's. I think it would be great, and I think it's time.

Middle class people will return to the cities - there's a lot of unused room in every major city I've visited - abandoned apartment houses and single family dwellings - in cities like NY these abandoned units are cheek by jowl to some of the highest rent living space in the world. People will abandon commuting in favor of rehabilitating this housing stock.

We have ever increasing numbers of people and not a hell of a lot of arable land that’s not in use. Much prime farm land has been turned into suburban sprawl. I think this makes bio-fuels not too likely, at least in the long term – we need the land for food production.

Hydrogen is a long way off – you need to put as much into hydrolysis as you can get out of a fuel cell, so all we can practically do is make nuclear power portable – we have to build a lot of big nuclear plants to disassociate water, and that means not only huge investment but solving what’s been an intractable problem for the past 25 years – what do you do with the spent fuel. Money can address those issues, but gasoline will have to be hellaciously expensive before hydrogen from nuclear plants looks good.

Long term, I have to believe our future is being lived today in Japan – rural farmers who never see the city – city dwellers who only see the country by public transportation – rare and expensive private vehicle ownership – incredibly high concentrations of people in the urban centers, making commuting by public transportation feasible.

Oh, yeah, one other thing – drinking to a near stupor every night while smoking 2 packs a day to deal with the stress of it all.

One of the first things Carter did was cut back research money on atomic energy. Yikes!!! (BTW, in 1980 I voted for Anderson who wanted to tax gasoline 50 cents a gallon to pay for Social Security. If he had been elected and put that program into effect, we would be a lot better off today.)

Agreeing with you on this point, I said back then and still say that we should have a program attacking nuclear fusion with at least the same effort that we put into the space program.

The first country that is able to effectively harness nuclear fusion is going to dominate the world for years - if it can keep its technology a secret, which is getting pretty difficult in today's world.

I don't see any other source of energy that could satisfy our needs, although coal has been touted for years. Maybe it could provide an interim solution. Anti-pollution technology would have to be developed.

Seems like I remember hearing that some types of reactors produce byproducts with relatively short half lives. Instead of having canisters that won't become safe for a zillion years, they are radioactive for a dozen or two years, something like that. So that's attractive. Or maybe launch the stuff into the sun or something like that for disposal.

Nuclear power brings up a fear factor, but I also know that it's a good technology. Just like anything else, life is dangerous. I think it's worth re-examining. Submarines use nuclear power and people are living in close quarters with the reactor. So that's something. Chernobyl was a piece of junk, but the Ukrainians need the power enough that they band-aid it together. Pretty nuts, but the point is that energy is necessary for modern life and when you get down to nut cutting, you're prepared to make certain choices. People react much differently when faced with survival than they do when looking for luxury.

So I'm thinking we're getting close to nut cutting. All my life, we've been talking about the sky is falling where energy is concerened. But then it didn't and we all sort of lulled ourselves back into complacency. I'm thinking that there's no need for doom and gloom scares, but maybe just the economic situation might get us on the ball. I'd just like to see an all-out fuel program on the table, with zeal like we saw in the days of the Apollo missions.