SARAH PALIN: DRILL! Electric cars might work in Los Angeles, but they don’t work in Alaska

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SARAH PALIN: DRILL! Electric cars might work in Los Angeles, but they don’t work in Alaska
National Review Online ^ | 10/16/09 | Sarah Palin

Posted on Friday, October 16, 2009 2:16:24 PM by American Dream 246

Given that we’re spending billions of stimulus dollars to rebuild our highways, it makes sense to think about what we’ll be driving on them. For years to come, most of what we drive will be powered, at least in part, by diesel fuel or gasoline. To fuel that driving, we need access to oil. The less use we make of our own reserves, the more we will have to import, which leads to a number of harmful consequences. That means we need to drill here and drill now.

We rely on petroleum for much more than just powering our vehicles: It is essential in everything from jet fuel to petrochemicals, plastics to fertilizers, pesticides to pharmaceuticals. According to the Energy Information Administration, our total domestic petroleum consumption last year was 19.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Motor gasoline and diesel fuel accounted for less than 13 million bpd of that. Meanwhile, we produced only 4.95 million bpd of domestic crude. In other words, even if we ran all our vehicles on something else (which won’t happen anytime soon), we would still have to depend on imported oil. And we’ll continue that dependence until we develop our own oil resources to their fullest extent.

Those who oppose domestic drilling are motivated primarily by environmental considerations, but many of the countries we’re forced to import from have few if any environmental-protection laws, and those that do exist often go unenforced. In effect, American environmentalists are preventing responsible development here at home while supporting irresponsible development overseas.

My home state of Alaska shows how it’s possible to be both pro-environment and pro-resource-development. Alaskans would never support anything that endangered our pristine air, clean water, and abundant wildlife (which, among other things, provides many of us with our livelihood). The state’s government has made safeguarding resources a priority; when I was governor, for instance, we created a petroleum-systems-integrity office to monitor our oil and gas infrastructure for any potential environmental risks.

Alaska also shows how oil drilling is thoroughly compatible with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. Over 20 percent of Alaska’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources, and as governor I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025. Alaska’s comprehensive plan identifies renewable options across the state that can help rural villages transition away from expensive diesel-generated electricity — allowing each community to choose the solution that best fits its needs. That’s important in any energy plan: Tempting as they may be to central planners, top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions are recipes for failure.

For the same reason, the federal government shouldn’t push a single, universal approach to alternative-powered vehicles. Electric cars might work in Los Angeles, but they don’t work in Alaska, where you can drive hundreds of miles without seeing many people, let alone many electrical sockets. And while electric and hybrid cars have their advantages, producing the electricity to power them still requires an energy source. For the sake of the environment, that energy should be generated from the cleanest source available.

Natural gas is one promising clean alternative. It contains fewer pollutants than other fossil fuels, it’s easier to collect and process, and it is found throughout our country. In Alaska, we’re developing the largest private-sector energy project in history — a 3,000-mile, $40 billion pipeline to transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to markets across the United States. Onshore and offshore natural gas from Alaska and the Lower 48 can satisfy a large part of our energy needs for decades, bringing us closer to energy independence. Whether we use it to power natural-gas cars or to run natural-gas power plants that charge electric cars — or ideally for both — natural gas can act as a clean “bridge fuel” to a future when more renewable sources are available.

In addition to drilling, we need to build new refineries. America currently has roughly 150 refineries, down from over 300 in the 1970s. Due mainly to environmental regulations, we haven’t built a major new refinery since 1976, though our oil consumption has increased significantly since then. That’s no way to secure our energy supply. The post-Katrina jump in gas prices proved that we can’t leave ourselves at the mercy of a hurricane that knocks a few refineries out of commission.

Building an energy-independent America will mean a real economic stimulus. It will mean American jobs that can never be shipped overseas. Think about how much of our trade deficit is fueled by the oil we import — sometimes as much as half of the total. Through this massive transfer of wealth, we lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could be invested in our economy. Instead it goes to foreign countries, including some repressive regimes that use it to fund activities that threaten our security.

Reliance on foreign sources of energy weakens America. When a riot breaks out in an OPEC nation, or a developing country talks about nationalizing its oil industry, or a petro-dictator threatens to cut off exports, the probability is great that the price of oil will shoot up. Even in friendly nations, business and financial decisions made for local reasons can destabilize America’s energy market, since the price we pay for foreign oil is subject to rising and falling exchange rates. Decreasing our dependence on foreign sources of energy will reduce the impact of world events on our economy.

In the end, energy independence is not just about the environment or the economy. It’s about freedom and confidence. It’s about building a more secure and peaceful America, an America in which our energy needs will not be subject to the whims of nature, currency speculators, or madmen in possession of vast oil reserves.

Alternative sources of energy are part of the answer, but only part. There’s no getting around the fact that we still need to “drill, baby, drill!” And if those in D.C. say otherwise, we need to tell them: “Yes, we can!”

— Sarah Palin

And, in the long run electric cars are worse for the environment unless they are charged up by nuke power. So if we go lectric, we need to go nuke too.

Why is she still only talking about Alaska? She needs to make this a national issue...When she is President, she is going to have to care about the entire country not just Alaska....come on Sarah....Go national! You only have 3 years left. Actually the Presidential Election will start on November 4 2010...

Totally agree - why build all these highways (which use oil to make tar, by the way), if we won’t have anything to drive on them? Or anything to haul on them to keep our economy going?

Rome was destroyed by corruption from within, and so will America if we allow it.

That’s important in any energy plan: Tempting as they may be to central planners, top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions are recipes for failure.

Oh wow, she is good.

Because her experience is in Alaska, she is showing how her experience there can benefit the country as a whole. She is courting her political base with her resume

Electric cars might work in Los Angeles, but they don’t work in Alaska, where you can drive hundreds of miles without seeing many people, let alone many electrical sockets.

Sarah apparently views the lack of recharge locations as the greatest issue. I suspect there is a much greater one.

Unless I'm confused, temperature drastically affects battery performance. Anybody know how sub-freezing and sub-zero temperatures affect the performance of the variouis electric cars that are out there or proposed? Seems like this might be kind of a big issue in Alaska!

Don’t they have block heater plugs all over Alaska?

It affects the automotive-style lithium ion batteries a lot less than it affects the lead-acid battery that starts your engine. Or the viscosity of your motor oil and fuel, for that matter.

All of this said, don’t get me wrong. I think we need to both drill *and* innovate. I’ll never get why so many people see it as an either-or situation. America is blessed with natural resources and a great number of talented scientists and engineers. We can and should do both.

I would imagine that very hot temperatures also affect electric cars - it takes a lot of electricity to run an air conditioner.

In terms of maintaining temperature, yes. However, in terms of reaching the target temperature to begin with, a lot of electric cars have a feature where you can program the car to reach a certain temperature while still plugged into the wall (either on a timer or, increasingly nowadays, remotely via the web). So when you get out to your car, it’s already at the desired temp.

That’s one benefit of the global warming scaremongering — it’s gotten some rats to support nukes. Not a majority of them, but enough.

Building an energy-independent America will mean a real economic stimulus.

We send several hundred billion a year out of the country buying fuel.

That money puts other countries' citizens to work, and it pours into the tax bases of other countries when it could stay right here putting Americans to work and funding our tax bases.

Its evil to sit bankrupt and unemployed when you have enormous wealth right under your feet or right off shore.

We have saudi-sized oil shale deposits in Colorado and Utah. We have oil percolating up through the ocean floor off California. We have billions of barrels of oil off the Alaskan coast. We have more coal than we could ever burn that could be converted into oil and gas. And for that matter we should be building 50 nukes right now, which could be fed from our own uranium fields had we not forced them to shut down.

If complete energy independence is a tough challenge, generating enough new energy to replace what we import from the middle east is not at all impossible. Its very do-able. We just have to make up our minds to do it.

Brazil drilled her way to energy independence. She's famous for bio-fuel, but in actual fact she drilled her way to independence. We could do the same if we could vote out the OPEC shills who keep shutting us down.

Amen to that.

And up until recently, nobody knew that Brazil had a -huge- oil field sitting right off its coast. Imagine how much oil we may have in the outer continental shelf.

It’s not an either-or proposition. We can both advance tech and drill for oil. No, really!

Enervating.

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