But I suspect that the costs of obtaining those fossil fuels will increase as the low hanging fruit is used up. That will spur discovery of cheaper methods of getting energy. Who knows at this ponit what those will be.

To a certain degree, but the problem there was the unionization of the workers. Reagan simply disbanded the union - he didn't try to fire individual controllers.

Fossil fuels aren't going to,be exhausted for a very long time. Remember "peak oil"? Nobody is talking about that anymore.

The problem is that fossil fuels will be exhausted by the lack of fossils, and become far more expensive. They arent very efficient either thermodynamically. I suspect nuclear options will take over before wind and solar.

Reagen ran into the same problem with air traffic controllers...it will be interesting to see how they deal with it...

The DOE should be renamed as the DOPE. Department Of Phony Energy. Completely eliminate all of the climate projects and focus on nuclear capability only. Then we can rename it DORE. The Department Of Real Energy.

I seriously doubt it. The problem is that fossil fuels are pound-for-pound some of the densest sources of energy period. And the ease of mining and use makes them prime for powering the engines of the world. They also don't suffer from the problems of variability both wind and solar encounter daily.

The problem is that Congress themselves passed some rules which protect the majority of the rank-and-file from termination by the President. It's kind of ridiculous, but the President doesn't have much hire/fire authority over the Executive Branch with the exception of appointees confirmed by the Senate. I think that should change to some degree. You can't be an effective boss if you can't fire people for non-performance.

let's hope Rick Perry and Donald Trump will lower the hammer...

That also might have an effect on career planning. Government jobs should be less stable than private employment.

Wish they went away yesterday.

Just gets better and better. EPA and now DOE. Both could go away tomorrow, and the country would be better off.

Looking at the complete list of questions Trump's transition team sent to the DOE, I got the distinct idea that he wants to fast track modern nuclear power technology. Ironically, whether or not you're a believer in human-caused climate change, that's definitely a way to make a significant reduction in greenhouse gas production. It would be nice to see a go-ahead for thorium reactors.

So, we get rid of the department that's main purpose isn't the production or prohibition of oil, but the production and restriction of nuclear material and the way it is used...

I would personally like to see it reformed - not in a short-sighted "drill baby drill" mantra, but in a long term revitalization of the power source which our Navy has used for decades in its fleet. Split, baby, split!

Draining the swamp also includes getting rid of useless departments of government. Firing government employees is a GOOD thing

I will be dead and buried before any of the threatened effects of climate change would ever be apparent. By then, I think the world will be using other forms of energy than burning fossil fuels anyway.

Why do we even HAVE a DOE. Its none of the business of government to regulate the energy I use. The free market is a lot better at it than the government ever would be.

Bureaucracies exist in tyrannical states to support and continue the tyranny. They have no other function although they may pretend that they are providing a service. If Trump chooses someone to lead the bureau then his action shows clearly that he intends to maintain the tyrannical rule. Even if you give an order to the bureau if they do not want to carry it out they won't. The only way to control it is to turn out the lights and send them home.

Of course Trump is going to win this. Do those slobs at DOE seriously think otherwise?

I "get" that Secretaries come and go, but the "Civil Service" remains.

Except they have a new Sheriff in town.

NO, there is still no proven scientific link between any alleged "problem" and the actions of humans. There is a hypothesis that has not been proven. There are computer models of the hypothesis that have shown the existing hypothesis to be incorrect at predicting climate, which is the stated purpose of the models. Without any way to prove the hypothesis to be true, taking action on what has proven to be a false conclusion is utter foolishness and a waste of scarce resources.

Bravo lucky, you echo my comments or I echo yours.

People don't accept the science of man made climate change because it is fraudulent science.
Data is manipulated or left out if it doesn't fit the goal of proving the charade, temp monitoring stations moved to heat islands in the cities, ice pack growing around the planet , not shrinking. But certainly not reported.
3 feet of snow in Hawaii early Dec. In mid March 2016 estimated 3million monarch butterflies freeze to death in southern Mexico .Same time it snows in the Carribean ,some islands have never had recorded snow. The sun regulates our climate and we are now in a solar minimum. The kind of bull crap the news does pick up is Obama traveling to Kaliphonyia during a severe drought as he explains that it is proof of man made global warming , even though scientists know these severe droughts have lasted for over 300 years in the past before the auto or power plants or the methane congress belches out trying to take control from the people.

The so-called science behind climate alarmism is founded on fraud and supported by sheep motivated by false altruism and faked guilt.
See- moral posturing / virtue signalling.

No solutions are required to fix non-existent problems. Those who feel guilty about being affluent can mouth off their nonsense but should keep their hands out of the pockets of others.

The most harmful emissions are not of carbon dioxide which is beneficial to life but from the mouths of the parasites and followers of this nonsensical alarmism.
There is one extreme danger- they may find a way to take such a large amount of carbon dioxide out of the earth's atmosphere that all life on earth will disappear.

You speak of "the science of climate change" as if there were such a thing. There is a theory of global warming based on CO2 with a vast number of variations on what is going to happen based on assumptions and feedback loops. There is no one thing. Even the people who accept the theory project anything from mild warming to several degrees. And mild warming is a net positive.


But we keep getting this religious test of "do you believe in climate change".

"plan have any proven positive effect on climate."
That's the problem I have. We have solid evidence of the problem, but we don't have a solid solution. It's not surprising billions of us living affluent lives is causing some problems. The current mass extinction began as behaviorally modern humans appeared and spread quickly around the earth. Even the hunter/gatherers knew about avoiding hunting; they knew their actions could affect the environment.

Now there are more of us, and the problems are bigger. It seems we must find a way to capture the emissions or stop them cold. Slowing down the process of extraction and burning won't do. But it's all we have right now. It's a tough problem. I'm sure humanity will encounter more such problems, and some will try to use them as an excuse to push collectivism. To me the solution rests on the hope (a tenuous basis for a plan) that charging people the "collective" costs of burning stuff, which I wish didn't exist but I can't deny reality, will hasten invention of new energy sources. We will have to invent them eventually anyway. It would be could do it while those hydrocarbons are still buried deep in the ground. I actually think we won't and we should be working on ways to dick with (sorry, geo-engineer) the atmosphere. It's one of humankind's biggest problems. I guess I should understand why it makes people deny reality.