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Get Out of Mideast-Declare War on Oil

A

Anonymous

Guest
Publishers Corner
with Christopher Ruddy
Moneynews.com


Declare War on Oil

Imagine if President Bush, after 9/11, simply declared war on oil and put the whole nation behind ending our crippling dependence on it.


Imagine if we had spent the money we allocated to the war in Iraq toward eliminating the oil addiction. The tab for the Iraq war hovers around the $1 trillion mark and grows at a clip of at least $12 billion a month. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the cost through 2017, including hidden costs such as veterans’ benefits, could total $2.4 trillion.

There is little question that America is defending its interests in the Middle East largely because of oil. In his recent memoir “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Declaring war on oil should be — literally — a war, giving the president and Congress emergency powers to mobilize the nation as never before.

I am not talking about platitudes, which we are once again hearing from presidential candidates.

I remember watching Jimmy Carter’s 1977 televised speech in which he said dealing with America’s oil dependency as “the moral equivalent of war.”

In the years since, every president and presidential candidate has repeated the call to lessen America’s dependence on foreign oil. Yet little has been done.

Today the crisis is worse than ever as oil soars over $100 a barrel.

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens recently appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Pickens painted a dire picture: The U.S. is paying foreigners one-half trillion dollars a year — and some of those nations are our enemies.

At current rates, America is set to spend $5 trillion over the next 10 years to buy foreign oil, Pickens said, adding “That's more than $1 billion a day.”

And he’s right; the beneficiaries of this wealth transfer are often the “bad guys” — Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.


The numbers show our dependency. Currently, about 70 percent of U.S. electricity generation comes from the burning of fossil fuels, with nuclear power accounting for about 20 percent, hydroelectric 5.6 percent, and all other sources only about 2.5 percent.

We need to declare war on oil.

Here’s how such a “war” might work. The president and his administration would have emergency powers to develop, design, create, and implement alternative energy sources — just like the president can do during a full blown war. And since this would be a war, the trial lawyers and environmental extremists wouldn’t be allowed to bring millions of dollars of time-consuming law suits to stop the implementation of these energy sources.

Here’s just some of the areas the U.S. could focus on:

— Nuclear energy. Its increased use could dramatically lower America’s dependence on oil. France gets about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, according to the latest statistics. As of June 2007, the production cost of nuclear power stood at 1.72 cents per kilowatt-hour — compared to 9.63 cents for petroleum.

It’s environmentally friendly and we first led the world in this technology. Yet no new nuclear power plants have come on line in the U.S. since February 1996.

Geothermal energy. You may not know this, but Iceland gets 99 percent of its electricity from geothermal means.

Drill deep into the earth and you get heat. Pour water down the hole and it vaporizes to steam. Steam can turn turbines to create electricity. Advocates say that a fully developed geothermal energy program in the U.S. could provide all American energy needs 2,000 times over.

Geothermal plants already provide thousands of megawatts of electricity to Northern California and Nevada.

Wind power. This natural form of energy also is feasible. American wind energy installations currently produce enough electricity on a typical day to power the equivalent of more than 2.5 million homes, but the potential exists for far more wind power production. Pickens says whole sections of the Midwest could harvest enormous energy from such wind farms.

— Coal liquification. This process converts coal into petroleum. Coal liquification has been used for some time, but it’s costly. Already, the U.S. Air Force is increasingly using synthetic fuels made of coal derivatives, which are far cheaper than jet fuel.

Our government could back developing new technologies to make this work on a mass scale. The U.S. has an abundance of coal. U.S. recoverable reserves are estimated at 275 billion tons, the most in the world.

We need to work at every level to end our oil dependency. Congress needs to pass tax and other incentives for companies to research and develop new energy sources. At the same time, Congress has to incentivize consumers to help create the market for alternative energy.

Make no mistake — if we waged this war, we all would win.
 

fff

Well-known member
You know, Jimmy Carter actually tried to do something about oil dependency. There was lots of research on solar panels, and electric cars, people were building underground houses, wind generators started going up. If Reagan had stayed with that, no telling where we'd be. I am beginning to think Republicans just aren't very bright. :D
 

Steve

Well-known member
Here’s just some of the areas the U.S. could focus on:

— Nuclear energy. Its increased use could dramatically lower America’s dependence on oil. France gets about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, according to the latest statistics. As of June 2007, the production cost of nuclear power stood at 1.72 cents per kilowatt-hour — compared to 9.63 cents for petroleum.

It’s environmentally friendly and we first led the world in this technology. Yet no new nuclear power plants have come on line in the U.S. since February 1996.

— Geothermal energy. You may not know this, but Iceland gets 99 percent of its electricity from geothermal means.

Drill deep into the earth and you get heat. Pour water down the hole and it vaporizes to steam. Steam can turn turbines to create electricity. Advocates say that a fully developed geothermal energy program in the U.S. could provide all American energy needs 2,000 times over.

Geothermal plants already provide thousands of megawatts of electricity to Northern California and Nevada.

— Wind power. This natural form of energy also is feasible. American wind energy installations currently produce enough electricity on a typical day to power the equivalent of more than 2.5 million homes, but the potential exists for far more wind power production. Pickens says whole sections of the Midwest could harvest enormous energy from such wind farms.

— Coal liquification. This process converts coal into petroleum. Coal liquification has been used for some time, but it’s costly. Already, the U.S. Air Force is increasingly using synthetic fuels made of coal derivatives, which are far cheaper than jet fuel.

Our government could back developing new technologies to make this work on a mass scale. The U.S. has an abundance of coal. U.S. recoverable reserves are estimated at 275 billion tons, the most in the world.

We need to work at every level to end our oil dependency. Congress needs to pass tax and other incentives for companies to research and develop new energy sources. At the same time, Congress has to incentivize consumers to help create the market for alternative energy.

while it sounds nice to pretend that with out the war any of this could have or would have happened.. one might also imagine the groups that would have protested each of these ventures...would grow fairy wings and just go away.. :roll: :wink:

who is stopping these fine ideas now? sure isn't the republicans..

Nukes.. every liberal environmentalists would have fought them, and actually are doing so right now.. it took Bush to actually put forward an energy plan that re-started our Nuclear energy plant building..

Wind power.. wasn't it the liberals who blocked it off the coast of Mass.. and New Jersey? .. yep they are all for wind as long as they are built in Red states..

as with every plan.. environmentalists and not in my back yard liberals, they fight them out of existence with court delays, protests, lawsuits and overburdened misguided regulations,..

and if that doesn't work the leftists find some other whining way to stop them.. like claiming they get unfair subsidies..and tax breaks..

If they were profitable and viable business would already be investing in them...
 

Kato

Well-known member
They are investing. 8)

Geothermal isn't just for creating electricity. In our part of the country it's the method of choice for heating most new homes, especially in rural areas. If we needed to replace our furnace, it would be with geothermal.

This is how it works. You bury pvc pipe either straight down into the ground, or horizontally in a grid. It goes below the frost line. Liquid circulates through the lines and into the house. In the winter, it pulls heat out of the ground and keeps the house at a comfortable room temperature. In the summer it does the same! Air conditioning is the bonus. The only power it needs is to run the fan that circulates the warmed/cooled air through the house.

http://www.homebase.ca/articles/mb_geothermal.asp
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Steve
who is stopping these fine ideas now? sure isn't the republicans..



Since George Bush became President in 2001, the top five oil companies in the United States have recorded profits of $464 billion through the first quarter of 2007:


ExxonMobil: $158.5 billion
Shell: $108.5 billion
BP: $89.2 billion
ChevronTexaco: $60.9 billion
ConocoPhillips: $46.9 billion

ExxonMobil's annual profit increased by more than 250 percent between 2002 ($11.5 billion) and 2007 ($40.5 billion- new record high).

Somehow I just can't envision oilmen like GW or Cheney putting out much effort against the profiteering of their oil industry buddies by actually researching or developing much alternative energy... :???: :(
 
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