Note: this was a comment I made to someone else's blog, but I liked it as it ties in with what I've said before.
Renewable energy (bio-fuels, solar and wind) can reduce our dependency on fossil fuels but not replace it. Without accepting that our power demands cannot be met without nuclear power plants we will sink more time and money into research for the mythical renewable energy sources. The key give away that this is all politics is the proliferation of corn ethanol plants. Corn is an expensive way to make ethanol and tons of money is being dumped into sugar subsidies (paid to not grow it) even though sugar is a ridiculously cheap way to manufacture ethanol. Plus it takes more energy to make corn ethanol than it does sugar ethanol, same with the cellulose ethanol plants.
Solar and wind can decrease the reliance on the power grid for homes, small farms and offices, but it will never replace it. And while bio-diesel from soy can replace petro-diesel, E85 can't replace gasoline, you need an engine designed to run on E85. So while you've got the various farming lobbies, the coal lobbies and the auto lobbies making out great with the current direction of energy generation, the consumer is left out of the equation... except of course we will be picking up the check!
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