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It'd most likely decimate the boating, RV, and general "recreational driving" industries.

I don't think it's a very good option, upon review.

Meh. People have been trying to kill those things off for years. Boaters are gonna boat.


I get about 3/4 mile per gallon on mine. When gas was $5/gallon, we still used it. Now it will probably be $2.50 gallon. We'll use it about the same, although for less months, as Lake Michigan, I think, is still iced-over. Hard to tell from down here.

You're not going to move the boat down to Florida?

my golf cart doesn't use much gas

I think if "we" collectively really really believe CC was a looming crisis and we HAD to do something drastic NOW, we'd be behaving much differently.  Obviously, countries would be pushing wind and solar, fine, carry on, but that won't get us "there" fast enough.

The ONLY currently available technology is nuclear, and oddly enough countries aside from France are moving away from that as an option.  (There is noise in France of course, but nothing realistic.)  It would be technically possible to replace every coal fired plant in the US with nuclear in a decade.  And yes, it would be costly.  Every nuclear plant seems to have horrendous cost overruns (Vogtle).  Perhaps that could be mitigated by using a standardized design as they do in France.

That step would put a significant dent in our carbon output, it would not solve the problem of course, we'd still have NG plants, and transportation, but it would be a nice dent.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/energy-and-the-environment/where-greenhouse-gases-come-from.php

Coal is responsible for about a quarter of our CO2 production (US).  Coal also produces quite a bit of regular pollution which is bad, and of course coal mining and disposal of ash is a problem as well.  

Coal is the dominant CO2 emissions source related to electricity generation

In 2018, the electric power sector accounted for about 38% of U.S. primary energy consumption and produced 33% of total U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions. Coal accounted for 65% and natural gas for 33% of electric power sector CO2 emissions. Emissions from burning petroleum fuels and non-biomass waste (mainly plastics) in waste-to-energy power plants and emissions from some types of geothermal power plants accounted for about 2% of power sector CO2 emissions.

So, PART of a reasonable PLAN would be to shutter our coal plants in X years.  Now the question is HOW, and at what expense.  Many will be closed anyway of course, but many will still be operation in say 2030.  While wind/solar can help chisel at this, we really would need more nuclear to replace this chunk is say a decade.

We all know the issues with nuclear, but the simple fact is we KNOW how many megawatts they can produce at what cost.  There are two power reactors nearing end of construction now, and that's it.

If we really were serious about taking out a chunk of CO2, folks would be pushing this.  But, they aren't, because it doesn't match with the PC message of "wind and solar".

I hope all these new wind turbines have costs built in for disposal when they reach their 20 year expected lives.

I doubt the coal and natural gas plants had costs built in for disposal when they are abandoned.