Public Opinion: Can the United States Achieve Energy Independence?
Is it an achievable or even desirable policy? A pair of experts disagree—join the debate now
Reader Comments
Save your energy
The only way we can be energy independent is to produce electriciy using coal and natural gas. Otherwise the price of energy will put us in the 3rd world group.
A law is required to insure that all oil produced in the USA stays in the USA. We are currently creating biofuel in Erie,PA and shipping it to Europe. Alaska oil is shipped to Japan. Producers must get a better price.
Yes, electric cars, hydrogen cars are a great idea but coal will make up more CO2 unless electric plants invest billions for the new technology.
Oh, maybe Iraq will sell us their oil at half price for our attacking them and our troups never leaving.
Save your energy. Oil is here to stay if we can keep the cheats out of the commodities market.
Concrete Actions
I agree with the thoughts and being a Engineering Mind that It is possible and very reality that true leader can think and realize the facts of the most advance having the technical and resources to ends to the advange for every one and not the lobbyists and certain corporation in narrow mindedness and certain interest in parsonal or certain peoples.
There could be huge amount of energy that can be harvest from the Solar Power with very very folds in returs when done at the very less costly to every one beside the urgent need and urge that we can and should diliver as a leading nation at all aspects and responsibility at the present time being in capacity.
Nuclear, Wind and Geothermal are other options or collectively as well as Coal that could be refined to produce less Corbon Dioxide and take measures in other ways of Efficient use of the Energy that we presently using in the available forms by the technology.
Technology
We have the technology..we have the technology. We have the technology to go to the moon; but none of us but a handful have ever been there. Having the technology to do something does not address the practical issues of what it can be used for. We, as Americans can sit around and play "choose your solution" as we continue our convenitnet life every part of which is based on inexpensive fossil fuel.It is going to take us fifty years to get off oil because we have committed so much of our the land use patterns of where we live and work and our infrastructure (roads, bridges, gas lines, rails and more) to this cheap energy source.
We need to drill for our own oil. We need to erect many, many nuclear power plants, we need to mass produce solar panels and build as many wind generators as possile when we sort out a policy based on Science and Engineering of the most practical and efficient way to have the energy that we need and enjoy, substantially reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted and not interrupt life in some chaotic manner.
Where is an Energy Policy based on Science and Engineering (not an aggregate of respective lobbies ie. oil companies, wind production companies, solar companies, aggriculture, cap and trade brokers etc..) with some obvious assumptions about what the average person expects and deserves out of life. Ask your Government representatives - where is it? I really mean ask them where it is.
energy independence
Where is Nicola Tesla when we need him. This man who invented AC power, which we all use every day, reportedly developed a way to extract limitless energy from the air around us. Sounds crazy, but financier J.P. Morgan didn't think so. Google it. Mr. Morgan funded the project, but then pulled the plug so to speak, when Tesla wanted this free energy to be available to everyone after a one time cost for the equipment. J.P. Morgan supposedly told Tesla that if he couldn't put a meter on it and charge people, he was not interested . My answer to the question of energy independence is "yes, if we can just get our government to find all the notes they removed from Nicola Tesla's penthouse when he died several decades ago". Mark from Vero Beach, Florida.
The Forum - May 21-28 issue.
The energy crisis we face today is absolutely political. We send $700 billion a year to the Middle East to pay for oil that we could produce, and transfer that much money to many who do not like America, is absurd. The blame goes to the U. S. Congress and its members for the last 20 years, regardless of party. The environmental lobby is the other half of the problem because they have been successful in promoting useless policies in the name of protecting the environment. Preventing oil exploration and production in an extremely small area of the hugh territories of Alaska is criminal in that the claims are misleading and false, and stealing money from each person in the U. S. It would be of great, no, tremendous value, to us if the American media would stop being so political on such important issues, and report clearly both sides of environmental arguments without bias. Then, maybe the American voter would realize their problems have been created by their own elected representatives (misnomer) and would then vote to make serious changes in the considerations and votes in Congress.
It's the next question, after we know what is left, and when the alternatives are ready.
Will I arrive into New York by 7pm today? You surely cannot provide a rational answer to that without knowing my location right now. Similarly for the energy independence question. It has to be preceded by credible answers to: (1) how much oil is there to economically extract from the ground, and where, and (2) how far are we from exploiting the various alternatives? Credible experts vary on both questions, and until they are resolved -- no answer to the topic question has any credibility. We, at Case Western Reserve University, have initiated a formal effort to solicit experts on a global scale to resolve these vexing questions (PeakOilWhen.org). I believe the prime effort should be on providing the answers to these two questions that can only marginally be affected by our actions. Consumption, by comparison, is flexible: prices, and regulations can affect it dramatically. So let's determine the invariants first, and then our optimal strategy will show itself quite clearly.
Moringa bio-diesel
Not all bio-diesel plants degrade the environment or drive up food prices. Moringa trees produce oily seeds in a gourd like vegetable which is edible by humans and livestock. The leaves are so nutritious that a few tablespoons of the fresh or dried leaf meet the vitamin and mineral needs of a person for one day, and the leaves can be the sole diet of goats, pigs and rabbits. The seed cake left over from pressing the seeds is an excellent fertilizer, and the bark of the tree yeilds a blue dye useful for industry. The tree itself grows 20 feet per year and then has to be cut back to one meter high to make harvesting possible. This produces a large amount of low quality wood that does not burn well and can't be used for building, but does make a good fence post that is likely to bud into a tree, and the wood is excellent for paper pulp. The tree grows in hot climates and is drought resistant, making it ideal for many poor countries, where its production for bio-diesel would create many jobs and side industries. The tree requires little water and thrives in poor soil, even in saline soil where little else can grow. Forests of Moringa would doubtless support high quality wildlife for hunting, and no one need starve in areas planted intensively with it, since the leaves and vegetable are so nutritious, and the leaves and vegetable are good for animal feed. One mature tree produces up to 1600 vegetables in a year, and produces them for nine months of the year, starting in the dry season when there is often little else to eat. In Senegal the tree is called "Neva-die" because it is so hard to kill. One American company has just planted 1,300,000 acres of Moringa in the Philippines for bio-diesel. The tree could be grown in the American South and Southwest, in much of Mexico, Central and South America,around the Mediterranean sea and Middle East, Africa, India,(where it is native), the Caribbean, the South Sea Islands, and Southeast Asia. There are many countries that could grow Moringa with which we have friendly relations, or where good relations could be developed. If we buy the bio-diesel from enough sources, we should be much less dependent on any one source. That is not energy independence exactly, but it is much safer than dependence on the oil exporting countries. I believe that bio-diesel is part of the answer for our energy needs, and I believe it can be a big part of sustainable development for large areas of the world that are extremely poor and environmentally degraded.
