The United States is a nation whose electric power generation system and grid is becoming increasing inadequate, even as the nation grapples with another energy problem -- the $4 per gallon gasoline era.

Moreover, an economic slowdown and a relatively mild summer have to-date reduced the typical electric load electric power generation plants would face, but that respite will end when the U.S. economy starts to expand at a healthy rate again. And when it does, electric power demand will increase.

What's one model the United States could follow to generate more electricity while the same time reducing coal-based pollution and climate change? France.

That's right: France. Nuclear power is experiencing a mild comeback in the United States, with 34 new reactor applications on file at the U.S.'s Nuclear Regulatory Agency. In France, it never left. Further, had the United States followed the French model, the U.S. would be vastly more energy self-sufficient today.

France: liberty, fraternity, equality, fission

Nuclear power never went out of style in France, and for this reason France is decades ahead of the United States -- and much of the world, for that matter -- regarding energy self-sufficiency, The New York Times reported. An astounding 77% of France's electricity comes from its 58 nuclear power plants, and it is a net-exporter of electricity to Europe. The United States has 104 nuclear power plants, which account for only 19.4% of its generated electricity, according to U.S. Department of Energy data, The Times reported.

Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf, an economist, poses the question, "Will CO2 emissions limits lead to a zero-sum global economy?" – an economy characterized by stagnant (or declining) incomes, and armed conflict among nations?

Wolf argues that increased energy consumption per capita, primarily oil from fossil fuel, has been a key causal factor in creating the plus-sum economic world we live in, which he calls the positive-sum economy. Or in other words, rising energy consumption has helped produce rising productivity / real incomes / wealth, and the expanding global economy that we know today.

In addition, Wolf further argues that rising energy consumption transformed politics -- assisting both the birth of democratic politics at home and more-consensual foreign relations among states -- by increasing the size of the economic pie. Elites in a country, Wolf argues, became more willing to tolerate the enfranchisement of the masses because it was in the elites' economic interest to do so: i.e. that energy consumption created a more-productive (and more-valuable) citizenry with higher incomes.

Internationally, a nation's gains from the increased trade that characterizes the high-energy consumption era far exceed its gains from making war with another nation: the plus-sum global economy that trade produces supports today's norm of trade as opposed to the limited-sum world's norm of conflict and war.

The Associated Press reports that 2000 president-elect and 2007 Nobel Prize winner Al Gore called for a universal global cap on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and the use of the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reduction.

In accepting his Nobel Prize in person, Gore missed a chance to attend the wedding of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) co-founder Larry Page to Lucy Southworth at Necker Island. But Gore's speech included some stirring calls to act: "Despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: 'They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.'"

What action is Gore taking? This week, he plans to urge the delegates in Bali to ratify a U.N. treaty to reduce global warming and bring it into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 -- two years ahead of schedule. He also calls for heads of state to meet every three months until the treaty is completed. He urges a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store CO₂. And he calls for a CO₂ tax that shifts the tax burden from employment to pollution.

Too bad Gore's not a head of state with the power to make this happen.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Google.

Detroit's Big Three, General Motors (NYSE: GM), Ford (NYSE: F) and Chrysler have often been criticized for their bureaucracy, slow decision making, and, at times, outright inertia...even when conditions required bold, decisive action.

There's the joke about the five General Motors executives that go on a camping trip in the Great Midwest. Suddenly, they spot a bear 600 feet away and charging toward where they're seated at the camp site.

Each executive has a rifle and is ready to shoot the bear to defend the campers, and the senior executive says: "Allright, Executives, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim..."

"Contrary to popular belief, CO2 isn't simply a useless pollutant; in fact, the gas is used to produce oil via a technique known as a CO2 flood," says Neil George and co-editor Elliott Gue in Personal Finance.

To invest in the trend toward increased usage of CO2 floods, the advisors look to the leader in storage and transportation of this gas, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP), a master limited partnership (MLP).

The advisors explains that CO2 gas is already used to produce more than 200,000 barrels of oil per day in the US alone, employing the CO2 flood. This involves pumping CO2 under pressure into oilfields to squeeze additional production out of older, depleted fields.

Says George and Gue, "With oil prices above $60, there are plenty of opportunities for producers to further expand the use of CO2 floods." They add, "That's great news for companies that handle the transportation and storage of CO2 for enhanced oil production." Topping that list, the suggest, is Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, the largest transporter and marketer of CO2 in the US.