You need to learn some economics, if the govt aids in the investment in new breakthrough technology that could create a cutting edge industry in the US it will increase not decrease economic growth. The NIH helps fund basic research that is “uneconomic” for private industry but helps create a cutting edge profitable biotech industry.

since no one has built a nuclear plant in decades no one knows the cost enough for a “rule of thumb” plus no one has solved the problem of storing the waste.

Estimating the cost of solar power “based on existing technology” misses the whole point: solar power is a priority for national security and environmental reasons therefore govt assistance is appropriate to seed these industries. Your argument would be like saying in the 1940s that propeller planes are cheaper fighter planes than jets given existing technology so we shouldnt fund r+d for fighter jets.

If the indirect costs of coal are factored into the cost of its electricity, perhaps coal’s present cost-advantage would disappear?

If we could determine the long-term external cost of each energy source and include it in the current price of electricity, would a market mechanism be the best method of avoiding those long-term costs?

The financial collapse shows that neither markets nor governments are as good at recognizing and responding to risk, as we might hope.

Is coal-fired economic growth a bubble that is due to burst, as the costs of global warming become apparent?

These are questions that conservatives need to address.

We need to get beyond spinning conspiracy theories about global warming being some kind of “hoax” by left-wing scientists around the world to cripple America.

We should have the debate about policy. Gingrich himself acknowledges that there is too much scientific evidence for global warming to deny its reality. And conspiracy theories turn off the vast majority of voters.

BTW: Margaret Thatcher, who was one of the great conservative leaders of the 1980s, was also an environmentalist.

I ask this, because I believe simply ignoring the climate change issue has helped kill the GOP among younger voters. If we want the youth vote, we will have to address issues young people care about, and climate change is one of them.