BZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!
Wrongo! We only "can't do without it" if we refuse to develop our own resources. It is a political problem, not a technical problem. Nuclear can provide the bulk of the necessary substitution and many uses of oil are easily replaced by cheap electricity. Even the resulting demand for copper can be replaced with high temperature superconductors and liquid nitrogen requiring... electricity. Many material needs can be replcaced with technology and energy.
I work at a refinery & we're full to overflowing.
That why prices are down & need to come down a lot more.
Every tank in every tank farm is bursting with product looking desperatly for a market right now like an old man with a prostate problem looking for a urinal.
Right on -- nothing but.
The Libs and darter snail crowd would still rather have America held hostage to the murderous and unholy alliances of Iraq and Saudi Arabia than to have this "precious" wasteland utilized.
I'm all for the ecology, but here we can kill two birds with one stone -- we can carefully drill for oil into 600,000 square miles of Alaska's still largely untapped reserve and become energy self-sufficient, while at the same time ruining the oil-based economies of the afore mentioned b@stard terrorist-sponsoring states.
And if you haven't thought about it....If, in fact, Bin Laden does have a dirty nukes...where do you think the radioactive material came from? There are safer ways to produce "energy" but of course none of the big oil companies would profit from them so they haven't been a concern.
Precisely!
Over a year ago, when prices started ratcheting up, I wrote all my "critters" in DC & Atlanta, and told them, "We need to drill like crazy in Alaska, offshore, and on the continent, we need to take the chains off nuclear power production, we need to exploit our vast coal reserves, we need to encourage gasahol and conservation... etc., etc.
It is not a scientific, technical, or engineering problem- it's a political problem.
1) All electricity would be run off of hydroelectic and nuclear generation.
2) The refining aspect would be expanded. The wells in the southeast are opened up to pumping with the usual profit margin.
3) ANWR is opened for new drilling!
4) Natural gas would be marketed for personal home, industrial, and any other use that would fit the market.
5) All governmental price caps and taxes are done away with so that a free market can take effect.
6) Government would give funds for alternative energy ideas. But, only under the guide of REAL science. It would also be monitored, and rewarded by it actual accomplishments, not some paper written on a principle, but pure scientific logic and a working prototype.
7) Off shore drilling contracts are re-opened without taxes and fees.
8) Gasoline and fuel taxes are reduced by three quarters, across the board. Never to be increased again.
In other words, let a free, and open market take effect. Let people get rich, they deserve it if they pump their life savings into it. They take the risk, they get the profit.
We need refineries, and we need them now! The environmentalists have used the legal system, and the legislative process to stiffle the production of petrochemical processing. This has nothing to do with the environmant (considering the modern day refining process), but it does have everything to do with the social control aspect of the far left.
They are trying to control our food, it is their next project in it's infancy, but it is coming. If they control our energy use, then our food comes next. These people will stop at nothing to totally control the way that you live. They hate freedom, they hate liberty, and they hate these here United States of America, and it's Constitution.
Here is the problem that the socialists have; we have been free, we will be free, and we have a God given right to all of the above. Their power comes from America not looking. We are looking now, and by the God eternal we'll be looking always. America is awake, it is no longer the sleeping tool of the socialist left. All we have to do now is to change the Washington crowd. Make them accountable to "The People". In a short explaintion, it's time to take back the God given power given to us by blood and courage. It's time for the majority to take the high ground and liberate this land for freedom, and life, and the light of all mankind.
The second American revolution is coming. It is being pushed by a vocal minority, the socialist left, and the "do nothing for America" crowd in the legislative branch of this country's government. The time will come for the Poeple to take back this glorious land, and we will. It is our Consitutional right, and our responsibility..
I'll die on my feet before I'll live on my knees!