over the timeline you are talking about, granted it will take a decade until efficiency has an impact in the automotive industry. another complete is captured by the new regs. should we not be increasing the miles per gallon we get from cars? absolutely. get rid of the internal combustion engine altogether. put together a 25-year road map to get rid of the internal combustion engine. replace it with batteries and hydrogen fuel cells and appropriate mass transit systems in dense population areas. we can dramatically reduce the demand for oil in that way. it s t seems to me and this is what s so captivating about your book. there is a coalition that should be formed about what you are proposing. you aren t just saying drill and forget the environment. you are saying drill but put on a carbon tax. use that to fund sequestration. yes, nukes, yes efficiency. yes transform our entire economy. it seems like such a centrist, sensible system. we were chatting with ed rendell
do you see them as being a critical part, at least bridging the gap until other technologies emerge? we should be expanding the nuclear fleet in a couple of ways. we should make a loermt commitment to a much higher number of nuclear plants so we can commoditize the construction, the manufacturing and the development of nuclear energy going forward so it s less costly. commoditizing means make it the same, the way the french do. we should also explore the advances of thorium. it s a form of fish sion that is safer than nuclear and there s so much more of it. we re never going to run out of energy in this world. what we never have had, however in this country is an energy plan for the future that takes the next zero to ten years and does what we need to do. the next 10 to 25 years. the next 25 years. 50-year plan. that s what you need. guess what china is doing. they are doing a 50-year plan. guess what the eu is doing? they re doing a 50-year plan. what are we doing? we re waiting for
difficult to get through the door. i got through the door once in the entire two-year period thus far. and the meeting was cut short. there is not a keen interest in doing anything for hydrocarbons other than making them more expensive so that other forms of energy look relatively less expensive. that s not a way to go. we need a both/and answer. we need more hydrocarbons because we still have 250 million cars on the road. the new leaf, the new chevy volt, they are only hundreds and thousands on the roads, not millions. to make a real dent in the guess lean demand is going to take another decade or longer. in the meantime, where s our hydrocarbons coming from? we re not drilling for them? we re going to import them. it s going to be more expensive. it s foolish to do it this way. i agree with much of what you are saying. there is one thing we need to add to this conversation. that s the word efficiency. over the timeline you are talking about, granted it will take a decade until effi
but i think that will not last forever. sooner or later, if there is no peace process if there s no movement toward a palestinian state, i think israelis practically will start paying the price again. let s play devil s advocate. maybe it s the reality that netanyahu is correct that israel s best game is just to wait. abbas is beginning to form what is a real state within the palestinian authority. hamas has been sort of enclosed and isn t doing as much as it used to. hezbollah up in lebanon has been quiet momentarily, at least. so he s saying why give things back when we have a period of quiet and the rest of the world is focused on afghanistan, on iran and iraq. first of all, settlement growth makes creating a two-state solution harder and harder every year. secondly if you don t show the palestinians that abbas and the prime minister are getting anything from opposing terrorism, which i think most israelis would admit they are opposing terrorism, then i think you actually end
it s sort of like a cancer that grows very slowly and is invisible every day. what role are the arab leaders playing in the surrounding countries, in egypt, in syria? are they constructive at this point or are they just standoffish? i think they have a problem themselves. first of all, they have never really been willing to stick their neck out on behalf of the palestinians. they ve never really been interested in the palestinians except particularly for their own domestic mobilization. what they have done is they said in 2002 they would all recognize israel s right to exist if israel returned to 1967 borders. they haven t been willing to go further than that but at least they haven t retracted that offer. let s go to iraq for a minute, metaphorically. we re basically being kicked out with maliki saying there will be no extension of the agreement to let troops they there. is that by design? do we want him to do that so that we have a way out? is this good for u.s. policy? is this a