Stuff That Matters In Life

We can’t have the cake and eat it too.

Americans want to be prosperous, enjoy the luxuries of life, and complain to the energy company if their air conditioning is down for a few hours. But at the same time, they want to lower their energy usage. It just doesn’t work that way. A prime is example is how Al Gore lives vs what he says about global warming.

I agree with what Richard Yen says:

Presidential and vice-presidential candidate debates are supposed to provide insights on who has the better idea. But in the compressed format of debate, bad ideas often slip by uncorrected, especially when the liberal media continues to repeat the same bad ideas as truth.

One candidate during the vice-presidential debate last week repeated the “logic” of why we must not produce more oil from American soil. He said, “Now, let’s look at the facts. We have 3% of the world’s oil reserves. We consume 25% of the oil in the world.” Well, was that a suggestion that Americans are immoral?

Last time I checked (with google) America has a population of 301 million people, which accounts for 4.5% of the world population. Yet we produce a GDP of $13.8 trillion, which is 25.4% of the world’s total productivity. If we use 25% of the world’s currently produced oil to produce 25% of all the goods and services, what is the problem? What does that have to do with the amount of oil we have that is still sitting in the ground?

Now if the point is about independence from foreign oil, the candidate should agree to “drill here, drill now, pay less (to foreigners).” And if one is concerned that such an approach may deplete our oil faster, then allow us to use more coal. America has 4.5 times the energy locked up in coal compared to all of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserve. Why not burn some coal?

Another illogical assertion is that we will not get a drop of oil from the new wells for 10 years even if we start today. Was that candidate trying to say that President Clinton should have started drilling in 1998 so that we now have that oil? If something is important and takes years to accomplish, why does one party want to delay starting the process?

I was told by some young people that we should have built more electric cars. When I asked how we can get the electricity to charge those batteries, I was given blank looks. No one told them coal is the major source of our electricity.

Wind, solar and biomass currently provide 4% of our energy needs. Add in hydroelectric and geothermal, the total is less than 7%. For the foreseeable future, “renewable” energy simply cannot meet our energy need, which is expected to grow by 20% over the next 20 years.

Take wind power, which now provides 0.7% of all our electricity. To ramp it up to 20% of our electricity needs by 2030, the Energy Department estimates that it will take more than $2 trillion. We also need to build turbines all over the Midwest “wind corridor” as well as multiple offshore installations. And we need about 12,000 miles of new electric lines to connect the wind system to where people live. I wonder how many lawsuits the environmentalists will file to block such activities, even if we have the money to spend.

Wind is also not dependable; it does not blow harder when city dwellers all turn on their air conditioning. Since there are no good ways to store electricity, wind requires “spinning reserves” i.e. the burning of coal to supplement the supply at peak hours.

The presidential candidate for one party wants to mandate all new cars and trucks to use “flexible fuel.” That is a nice way of saying if he is elected we all must use fuel with higher concentrations of corn ethanol. The problem is: even if we convert the entire state of Texas to grow corn, the energy produced will replace less than half a day’s worth of foreign oil imports. I guess if hardworking Americans want to pay more for grocery, it “may work,” assuming we have enough water and fertilizer, and all Texans go along.

The problem of “energy dependence” is not due to the greed of the oil companies, nor the American consumer. One can declare that it is more patriotic to eat only American bananas and become “banana independent.” Should Americans pay more to eat only American-grown bananas? It would certainly create more American jobs, won’t it?

The reason why we import oil from other countries is because we have to. Environmental extremists have stopped the building of clean coal burning facilities and nuclear plants. Meanwhile the oil producing countries have oil to sell. You take what you can when you own countrymen do not allow you to have what you need to maintain the economy.

So here is the election season again. The media will find crisis to report. Never mind that some “cures” are worse than the problem. They will champion liberal causes dear to their own hearts. There is no program too big that the government should not take your money to control. At least someone is “doing something,” isn’t it?