Obama

I try to keep poltics out of this blog to focus on the issues at hand. If you noticed I mentioned regardless of who wins the presidential election both have mentioned cap and trade systems.

The president elect has a site to give input. I would have given the same input to either victor. Here is my submission:

Troops: Bringing the troops home safely after a successful conclusion to the wars and supporting their needs upon their return in recognition of their ability to endure the challenges they have faced and will face is the highest priority.

Global Finance: The stability of the global financial system along with regulatory adjustments to keep it stable is the next priority.

I don’t have any specific suggestions on those two items other than…

Buy steel: Global steel prices have retreated but they won’t stay low for long. There is a lot of infrastructure work ahead with plans already drawn up. Get the steel for the projects and have the projects store them now. That will save money in the long run. Getting full funding for projects so they can start should be a separate issue. This can be applied to other commodities as well. This saves money in the long run and boosts the economy.

Gasoline Disincentive: High gas prices ($4) are painful but low gas prices ($2) feed our addiction. Gasoline needs an increased tax when it is cheap to allow its replacement. The increase tax should fade when the price increases. Automatically doubling the federal tax when the yearly average is under $3 may be the way to go. It provides new revenue and declares an end to cheap gas that makes alternatives suffer. We saw the real suffer of not having alternatives when the market went over $4.

Biochar: There is some evidence that placing wood based charcoal into the soil increases productivity. The productivity lasts for multiple years and since charcoal is made out of carbon the carbon is sequestered for multiple years. The process of creating biochar produces usable energy, syngas, and other products in varying amounts. Biochar use could provide a combination of agricultural productivity, carbon sequestering, and energy. Every soil and crop in different. Every institution that supports agricultural research should be directed and supported to look into this. It won’t solve anyone problem totally but it’s something that can provide three partial solutions at once.

Northern Kentucky Carbon: We are energy challenged. 98% of our electricity comes from coal. We pay more than 30% less for electric than the national average. Local wind power will not have an impact. Remote wind power will most likely be used to supplant fossil in other places with none left for here. Geothermal will be common on the east coast before it comes here (the earth’s crust is thickest here; geo-hvac is an option though). There is no remaining usable hydro (unless we make the region into a great lake and live in boats upon it). This is also not an ideal place for solar (but out of alternatives solar leads, and solar water heating works well). Considering all that conservation, limited solar, and limited biomass are the only cards we have to get away from coal. When constructing national policy please use us as a case study. The nation needs to change its carbon footprint and we are one of the largest toes. Policies that make sense nationally have the potential to either lean us towards nuclear (which we have negative local memory (Fernald,Zimmer) or it will depopulate the region. Basically we are a region with little local energy, even the coal is barged in from hundreds of miles away.