Written by William F. Pickard   

To “kick the can down the road” is politico-speak for delaying effective and/or definitive action, action on an issue that’s a bit too important to be quietly ignored but way too fraught with difficulties to dissipate political capital facing up to it.

Thus President Obama, upon encountering the hot potato of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal facility, ordered a shut-down (since challenged by a Federal court), appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to look into the waste issue, and (by keeping this hot potato mostly high in the air) has adroitly managed to inhibit progress for the past seven years. And this despite an October 2014 report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asserting Yucca Mountain’s suitability for long term safe disposal! Listen up, guys! For seventy damned years, nuclear waste has been a problem: let’s stop this Keystone Cops routine and deal with it! The International Atomic Energy Agency says it’s a No-No to stash the waste willy-nilly for our descendents to deal with. After seventy years of phantom progress, the voters have earned the right to be upset, very upset!

Thus President Obama, upon being confronted with a plethora of plans for dealing with America’s energy challenges, adopted an attitude of “big tent” inclusivity and opted for “all of the above”. Sounds good! Except that, lauding diversity without providing resources sufficient to make diversity meaningful, does seem sort of feeble. Don’t blame the voters for being impatient. If you want to blame them for anything, blame them for being patient as long as they have.

We, the voters of the United States of America, deserve better than this. We deserve elected officials who feel our pain and take immediate steps to alleviate it.

Here’s a simple example. The data are overwhelming: electrification was the single greatest technical advance of the past century! Without a reliable supply of electricity our cherished life style goes poof. The fossil fuels to generate that electricity will be gone by 2100. We need sustainable green electricity, and we need it at once. But the technology to provide this electricity on demand does NOT as yet exist: it merely is ENVISIONED. We desperately need massive cash infusions to support Research, Development, and Demonstration. In a knock-down drag-’em-out debate, it would be virtually impossible for a candidate to escape the above realities: there are just too many facts supporting these depressing realities. At this point in history, all dedicated candidates should drag out their Good Books and make the following no nonsense pledge upon them, a Kick the Can Pledge:

I solemnly swear that I shall NOT kick the can on electric energy Research, Development, and Demonstration. Following my swearing in, I shall forthwith have legislation introduced to place an immediate 2.5¢ energy security surcharge on every kilowatt-hour of electricity metered in the United States, said monies to be used solely for the support of additional needful R, D, and D. I shall fight for this in the Committee Room. I shall fight for it on the Floor. I shall fight for it in the Media. I shall never relent until our descendants’ electric energy security is assured.

In today’s United States, such a levy would raise on the order of 100 billion dollars a year ? nowhere near enough to redo our nation’s entire electric energy infrastructure, but plenty to experiment with various envisioned strategies and figure out the shape a sensible redoing should take.




William F. Pickard, older ‘n’ dirt, is a retiree (from Washington University in Saint Louis) who specializes in energy matters. He’s pretty much clueless as to how the crises confronting America might be surmounted. But at least he has had the good grace not to stand for public office.