Is That Legal?

Ah, the Democratic demand for 'energy independence'. I'll believe you're serious when you agree to:

1) drill ANWR

2) drill off the California coast

3) drill off the Florida Straits and North Carolina

Each location has massive amounts of oil and natural gas beneath the ocean floor. That's documented and it can be accessed with current technology.

And one more:

4) permit wind farms on Cape Cod

That should do as a sign of good faith from the progressives.

[SHERTAUGH: I regret not being more clear. My point is an alternative to OIL is crucial for strategic reasons well beyond energy independence. OIL is what finances terror -- whether we buy it or China does. What we need to do is make OIL OBSOLETE. Since none of your suggestions make OIL OBSOLETE, and thereby cut off ALL MONIES to Arab terrorist countries (like our friends the Saudis), there's no reason to go there.]

Actually Steve makes a good point. The wind farms are independent of Oil, but If we become far less dependent on middle-eastern oil by producing more of our own, then the Middle-east cannot control our economy, thus handicapping us in other policy areas.

Steve makes the great point that we can do SOMETHING now that at least helps, however, progressives don't want any answer unless it's some magical development (apparently overnight) of technology that can immediately replace every drop of oil we use.

There are steps. Step one in the process shouldn't be to develop technology to eliminate Oil altogether. The first step should be to get our oil elsewhere and/or produce some ourselves. Then we can invest heavily into technologies. What makes you think the Saudis would sit by and do nothing while we make their only way of earning money become obsolete. If that was our only strategy, then their strategy becomes very easy. Refuse to sell oil to the U.S. or sell it at such a high rate that our economy comes to a standstill and cannot do anything, especially not replace their oil. However, if we do farm other sources of oil while finding other sources of power at the same time, then we hold at least some of the chips.

Steve is right. Any talk of energy independence needs to sound more like what the Republicans have called for. Less foreign oil and alternative fuels/programs. Not just one, while being beholden to the fascist tendencies of the environmentalist movement.

[SHERTAUGH: And exactly how would all this cut off all funding to the Middle East countries that continue to sell oil to the booming China and India economies? It doesn't. My concern isn't with the environment. It's with the failure of the Adminstration to facilitate the development of a technology that will make the Middle East IRRELEVANT to the rest of the world.]

Thank you for the response. However, you fail in one key way:

What you wish for isn't possible today. Or soon.

We have four major sources of energy today: oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear. All other sources combined don't add up to even 1% of our total energy needs (for the record, about 5.5 Terawatts per year). Talk all you want about converting waste into biodiesel or any other 'green' form of energy, for at least the next 30 years we're stuck with ONGCN.

Challenge: name a new technology -- ONE -- that can be brought to fruition in the next 10 years that will provide us with even 5% of our total energy needs. There isn't one.

And that's why oil is not, and will not be, obsolete. You may wish otherwise, but there is no technology on the horizon that will change that. None.

Therefore, if we want some measure of energy independence, we need to explore for oil in our backyard. We need to be realistic in the balance between energy production and environmental protection -- it's possible to do both, but we've tilted too far to the latter in certain ways.

I'm all for research. I'm all for new technology. I'm all for 'making oil obsolete'. But one can't use the hope for a new, clean, green technology as a dodge to avoid the tough questions today. Unfortunately it seems that progressives want to avoid those decisions, and that's why progressives have had problems at the polls.

If you want energy independence in the next 20 years, drill for oil and natural gas off the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf coasts. Build a hundred new nuclear electricity generating plants. Put wind farms wherever they're economical. Build plants that will convert coal to liquid petroleum.

But you won't make oil obsolete, not even close.

My point is energy and security independence based on a source or technology that renders OIL OBSOLETE in competitive terms
And a pony.

A couple of quick thoughts (I last posted here over a year ago; I lurk, I rarely post.)

Making complex hydrocarbons obsolete in utility is something only a lawyer could come up with; sorry. Oil is going to continue to have substantial value even when burning it for energy is no longer productive. (I do agree with you there, let's work on technologies to achieve that).

. It's with the failure of the Administration to facilitate the development of a technology that will make the Middle East IRRELEVANT

You want the Federal Government to develop technologies to make oil irrelevant? (even given the chemical value?) OK, let's ignore that and pretend you just want better energy sources.

But more specifically, you want this administration to do that?

Did Einstein's theory of relativity come out of any Government? Transistors? IC's? Personal computers (Caveat, yes, DARPA helped as a fountain of money. There is indeed your word 'facilitate'. Thing is, such facilitation frequently requires decades. Consider the Internet. A roughly 25 year project.).

Scientific breakthroughs and life-changing engineering marvels generally don't come from governments. Much less one administration in 8 years.

If you're saying a failure criterion for the Bush Administration (and I'd agree they've failed in a number of respects, and succeeded in some) is that they haven't "facilitate[d] the development of a technology that will make the Middle East IRRELEVANT"... then yikes.

You'd be setting the bar awfully high. And I don't think you should set it as high for an incoming Democratic Administration, but I'm sure you won't.

Best,
-Holmwood.