Krauthammer is half right.

It was 8 degrees Fahrenheit outside of Rancho de BCP here on Long Island this morning. It is cold but, a reality check of the calender shows that it is winter. Of course energy is on my mind today. Energy is also on the mind that neo-con thinker Charles Krauthammer in his column in the Washington Post today too.
Krauthammer has it half right. He calls for a tax on gasoline to raise it to about $4.00 which would help to discourage Americans buying over sized gas guzzeling SUV's as they make trips to go get milk or the visit to the mall. Maybe then there would be less American blood being spilled in places like Iraq in order to make sure there is no oil left behind for America's oil guzzling bender. One of the areas where Krauthammer fails is in his promotion of nuclear power, Krauthammer obviously has not read the memo. But, also more importantly Krauthammer makes no mention of one of the most abundant energy sources on earth and that is solar and wind. Conservatives like Krauthammer always seem to forget about these energy sources even though probably it is the most renewable resource as the sun comes up every morning. Perhaps another reason is because once solar takes hold there won't be a continuing revenue stream for their cronies in the corporate offices.

Unlike U.S. energy policy Rancho de BCP uses a variety of sources to heat it's interior. When I wake up I open the blinds to allow the east facing windows to let in the warm morning sun to allow some of that free energy to start the heating up the house. Today, because of the low temperature after I started making the coffee I lit a fire in the fireplace. The fireplace is actually a cast iron Franklin stove centrally located in the house that radiates heat to the living room and up stairs rooms. It is fueled by the tree limbs and wood gathered over the year from the quarter acre rancho de BCP. It is also fueled by the paper junk mail, newspapers that come in the mailbox. Those tree limbs and junk mail never end up in the local landfill they are put to use adding BTU's to the house which also keeps dollars in my wallet.

After the fireplace and morning sun have taken care of the early morning warm up. The two hot water solar panels I installed back in the mid eighties take over and through my conversion scheme actually pumps air heated of about 90 to 115 degrees into the house. Only after all these energy sources have done all they could do I turn to natural gas for heating. There are still plenty of energy improvements I need to make to make things even more efficient that allow me to tell the energy companies to shove it and I am not waiting for the Federal government to help me do them.