Since the 1970's Energy Crisis, no one, Republican or Democrat has put on the table a comprehensive Energy Policy. Everyone in elected office has decried our dependence on foreign oil while obstructing the pursuit of domestic oil production in the name of environmentalism. Even after September 11th when terrorist attacked us on our own soil using money obtained from our importation of foreign oil, not a single politician of either party sought to put forth an Energy Policy that would make us relatively independent of foreign oil. Our governments apathy regarding energy independence has resulted in the continued increase of foreign oil imports with the result of billions of dollars being transferred to terrorist states, or at the least states sponsoring terrorism. These insane policies are not limited to the United States; recently Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain brokered the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the killer of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in exchange for British Petroleum to obtain rights to oil in Libya. As bad as that is, the United States under both Republican and Democratic leadership has been and is as irresponsible.
Both Republicans and Democrats have hidden behind the guise of needing to develop new sources of energy, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and the like. They have all spent millions of dollars on the development of such whimsical ideas as electric cars as our salvation. Just a few months ago, Barrack Obama told some workers in Ohio that he would spend $15 billion on the development of new battery technology to power the cars of the future, and create thousands of new jobs. I guess he knows something that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Energy (DOE) doesn't already know. NASA and DOE have both spent millions of dollars trying to develop new battery technologies as early as the mid-1060's for the space program, and later in response to the energy crisis in the 1970's. These are all just distractions so that Congress and the President can continue to "fiddle while Rome burns."
Why haven't these alternative energy sources replaced oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear? Many would try to give a very long list of reasons, but the bottom line is that no other alternative energy source is cost competitive with oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear. In fact, if it weren't for government regulation of oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear they would be even cheaper than they are currently, and the alternative (green or renewable) energy sources would be at an even greater cost disadvantage. Then take away the government subsidies for these alternative sources (include ethanol here), the cost differential is enormous.
So, as President Obama much too often says, let me make this perfectly clear: Every US citizen who uses energy pays more for the energy they use due to government regulation and taxes; then every US citizen pays additional subsidies in the form of taxes to make alternative energy, including ethanol, more competitive with oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear. You pay twice. On top of that, all the politicians drag their feet when it comes to developing new domestic energy sources, and they throw every roadblock possible in the way of building new nuclear power plants, reprocessing facilities, and safe disposal sites. These are the reasons why we don't have energy independence, and every single person no matter their economic status or political affiliation PAYS through the nose for energy because both parties are content to sit idly by while the cost continues to grow, and we continue to fund terrorist states who want to kill Americans.
Then we see the wealthy T. Boone Pickens on TV asking us to support wind power; then later natural gas as the ultimate answer. Why? Because he owns many square miles of land throughout the West that he wants to capitalize on for wind farms, and he owns land that holds natural gas that he wants to sell. Now I don't mind that at all really, but everyone should know why he's hawking the snake oil he's hawking. In fact, I actually like natural gas as one alternative that America should unleash. Wind power is something else however.
So what's wrong with the green or renewable energy sources, and what are the sources of energy we should be aggressively pursuing? More on that in the next segment.
No comments:
Post a Comment