Some want to ignore the obvious that producing more clean, nonpolluting Nuclear based electricity reduces CARBON emmissions… AND every time Electricty is used in place of burning fossil fuels we reduce the demand for these nonrenewable resources.

Yea Nuclear has issues to deal with but we are smart enough to figure them out… Best yet, we can do it in the very short term versus the pie-in-the-sky far fetched ideas to remake the world we live in… Yea Solar has its place and many other ideas too… But we need to reduce fossil fuel demand now… Not 20-30 or even 50 years from now.

Cheap electricity that comes from todays Nuclear technology (versus like Byron’s built with pre-computer slide rule technology)… Hell yes we can produce cheap Electricty… saving us all big time while making current Battery technology feasible for an Electric Car while we work out the bugs with Fuel Cells and Solar.

The only hurdle to overcome is the misconceptions promoted by fear mongers about saftey of Nuclear Power plants…

For the record, a Nuclear Power plant can’t blow up and even the three mile Island accident of the late 1970’s gave off less radiation then a several cross country airline flights…

For sure Chernobyl was a major disaster but the Russian ignored commonsense safty precautions and again they used Nuclear Technology from 1960’s…. I think we’ve learned a few things after we started to use Computers to design things…

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/carbonfootprint.html

1. The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane).

2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown.

Tips to Reduce Your Primary Footprint
1. Holidays - Don’t go by air

2. Electricity - Sign up to renewable energy

3. Gas - Try using solar water heating - this can reduce your gas bill by up to 70% over a year.

4. Travelling around - Use public transport as much as possible. Find out about your local bus services and then use it.

5. Car Share - Sign up to a car share scheme to reduce your travel footprint.

Sorry guys, the less laws the better. The idiots who do “whatever unsafe” will pay the price through higher car insurance… As far as protection for you and I…. The Police have the ability today to stop unsafe drivers without more “good intentioned (but Dumb) laws.

Now as far as Urban Renewal one of my pet peeves… We need to come to grips with the fact that just because soemthing is old doesn’t mean it’s something we should keep around forever. Yes I agree with selective “historical significance” but every building from 150 years ago isn’t worthy of preservation…

Now to continue on my soap box… Will we finally come to grips with the fact we are competing with brand spanken new communities that don’t have the baggage of old worn down sections of town or just urban decay?

Rockford needs to put a bounty on every building over 50 years old that is currently occupied by a viable existing business and offer to freeze property taxes if the business BUILDS SOMETHING NEW AND MOVES AN EXISTING BUSINESS INTO IT… At the same time agreeing to tear down any old structure that has or is close to exceeding a reasonable life expectancy. fyi, All because an old building is still useable in some peoples minds doesn’t mean we should keep in “On the Books” as thatempty building puts us at a competitive disadvantage to investors and Banks looking to BUILD SOMETHING NEW IN ROCKFORD….

This idea would reward existing companies with similar giveaways offered to the new big box stores that come into the community and extort money from local Gov’t taxing bodies… But in this case the money would go to improve Rockford not just to build on some current cornfield on the fringe of Rockford.

While were at it… How about we establish a fund by selling bonds to buy up vacant factories, warehouses and commercail properties and tear them down… All they are now is eyesores, urban blight and worse yet… SHOW UP ON THE BOOKS AS EXCESS CAPACITY PREVENTING NEW CONSTRUCTION i.e. placing us at an uncompetitive advantage against the “newer” communities we are battling for jobs…

Ok …. I feel better now. (;-)

Let me ask the obvious question…. What’s better, having USA based Oil companies making record profits or having Middle East companies making record profits?

Duh… I think we would prefer USA companies to be making the money.

Ok now that this is off the table… Just what the heck do you expect the Big Oil companies to do in the WORLD MARKETS THEY SELL TOO? Are they suppose to sell a gallon of gas to us in the USA for $2 when they can sell the same gallon of gas internationally for $4?

If you were one of the many retired People who’s Pension Fund owned stock in the Big Oil companies and were counting on the dividend earnings to pay their pensions… Would you want the Big Oil companies to give away the gas at way below FREE MARKET PRICES and reduce the dividend earnings paid to stockholders, ie. many of which are Pension Funds???

I say it would a whole lot better for us to let them earn all the profitis FREE MARKETS ALLOW but also require them to INVEST some of those profits for long term improvements in new refineries AND DRILLING FOR MORE OIL IN USA CONTROLLED TERRITORIES!

Come on… isn’t this obvious?

Sorry guy’s and gal’s… they are no where near the same. If you save a gallon of gas you have the ability to save it, i.e. use it in the future.

If you save a kilowatt of electricity, you might save money on your electricity bill but you save zero energy that can be used in the future.

Com-Ed must focast demand and then produce electricity based upon this forecast… Unused electricity that is produced is plugged into the Grid but it can’t be saved for future use. Considering the inherent inefficiencies of the power grid, even the excess Nuclear based capacity in Rockford isn’t efficiently utilized somewhere else where they may be burning Coal or Natural gas to produce… electricity. i.e. No energy savings by the “feels good” dumb idea of an EARTH HOUR.

When will people wake up and realize we need to go on a building boom of Nuclear Power plants ASAP on the scale of the race to Space in the 1960’s or the National Highway System of the 1950’s??? CHEAP, NONPOLLUTING ELECRTICITY PRODUCED BY NUCLEAR POWER CAN ALLOW US IN THE NEAR TERM (3-5 YEARS) CAN PUT US IN THE POSITION OF TELLING OTHER COUNTRIES TO KEEP THEIR DAMN OIL… WE DON’T NEED IT.

Do you think just maybe a low cost Battery Operated Automobile would be possible if Electricity was dirt cheap to plug the car into every night before bed?

Plus think about all the jobs created… and the competitive advantages for USA JOBS when companies have access to cheap electricity to power their factories?