During FDR's presidency, Roosevelt framed roads, worker security and the like as national security issues.
Today, even for several decades, our elected officials have failed to provide us with energy security.
It's clear, the solution is to get the oil addiction monkey off our backs. Drilling for more oil is just digging a deeper hole when we are trying to get out of the hole.
McCain mocks Obama for calling for motorists to fill their tires to the level that maximizes gas use, even though, if everyone did as Obama suggests, this would provide as much gas savings as coastal oil drilling would provide. McCain and his people are the same oafs who mock people who want clean air, who resist deforestation as tree huggers.
We need big picture thinking to fix our energy problem. Maybe the oil companies should be required to have service station attendants who check tire air pressure whenever a person puts gas in a fuel tank. There are a lot of kids who can't get jobs. This would provide some. Or maybe the government should create a new 21st century conservation corps, like my father worked in when he was in his twenties, back in the thirties, and those workers could literally walk the streets, checking air on parked cars, optimizing the tire pressure. And they could go door to door doing energy audits, for free, on homes and apartments, helping people to identify ways to save energy. Again, more jobs and massive energy savings.
But the biggest way to save energy is to get the auto makers to improve their gas mileage performance. The Wall Street Journal reports that lately, American car companies are resisting a 24% efficiency increase target of 31 mpg set for 2015.
This automaker resistance is more of a threat to national security than the threat from terrorists. Their resistance is endangering lives and costing the US hundreds of billions in balance of trade. And they've been doing this, harming-- severely harming-- our national security for decades. They do it with the help of lobbyists and weak legislators who think they are helping their constituents. Tell the tens of thousands of already laid off autoworkers that being soft on auto manufacturers which are now faring terribly in market competition with foreign companies that had the foresight to build hybrid and high fuel efficiency vehicles.
It is time Americans let automakers know that their short-sighted, tight-fisted failure to build much more efficient cars played a role in our going to war, played a role in increasing our vulnerability to mideast instability.
It is time for Americans to demand that automakers do much better. It doesn't necessarily take legislation that requires automakers to build better cars. These companies respond to the market. If legislators reward consumers who buy more fuel efficient cars and if they punish consumers who drive gas-hogs, the market will force the American car manufacturers to clean up their act.
Let's review this again. Drilling for more oil is digging a deeper hole to get out of the hole.
The solution to the national security emergency our dependence upon foreign oil creates can be found in many ways besides digging for oil or finding new sources for oil. There is no solution that involves using more oil. The solution is all about using less oil and moving towards not using oil at all as a fuel for vehicles or electricity generation. That means we need to come up with ways to cut that use. One way is to use alternative energy sources. The other way is to make vehicles and products that use less energy AND to use all the energy devices we have now in a more energy efficient way. Do we even know which of these offers the lowest hanging, easiest to reach fruit?
Imagine adding a computer that tracks gas mileage. It might add $100- $300 to the cost of a car, probably less. if hundreds of thousands or millions are built. The device would record mileage and gasoline use and calculate miles per gallon for the car. Once every three or six months, you'll have a gas station attendant get a report from you device which will create a credit card that has YOUR gas use profile on it. The government will set guidelines so the worst the mileage, the more you pay per gallon. It won't take long for people to do all they can to maximize their mileage, including buying the most fuel efficient cars. Of course, tax breaks should be given for high mileage cars and tax surcharges should be required for gas guzzlers. That'll motivate the auto manufacturers too, and revenues from the tax surcharges will pay for research and development of new alternative energy approaches. (Hey, I'm an inventor. We're using to trying out lots of things that don't work, to get to things that do.)
We need to end our need for oil, not keep drilling for more of the substance we are addicted to. Republican leaders are not bringing solutions that help us end our addiction. They're just finding new ways to feed it and they are mocking some of the simplest solutions at our fingertips.
Perhaps we need to invest in getting far more systematic about decreasing wasteful use of energy and increasing our awareness of efficient approaches to energy. We invest in education and free resources for safe sex to prevent AIDS and for contraception. We invest in Fire Safety programs. We're spending billions on Homeland Security. Why not take Obama's suggestion that we optimize our tire pressure to the next level and make a serious effort, setting up education and free consult centers to save the hundreds of billions we could save by getting more efficient in our energy use?
And while we're at it, let our legislators and the American auto manufacturers know that we consider energy efficiency an issue of national security-- and that they have to do much better.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com and is a columnist with Northstarwriters.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
A lot of exciting things happening in the renewable energy field. MIT's announcement that they have found a way to make solar power work 24 hours a day. Storing solar energy via storing steam and boiling water. Concentration of solar power through the use of mirrors and the advances in weight - solar paneling becoming much lighter and more efficient.
I'd like to see us concentrate on ways to create mini sustainable energy units - that could used by virtually every roof top. Certainly there is enough solar energy to power the heavy use air conditioners in the summer.
Then, convert to electric cars or plug in hybrids for the colder climates.
No reason this can't be done, the technology is already here - we just need the capital investment.
And I for one would rather spend it here in America then on the blood sucking Military Industrial Complex and war machine.
We can do this - we just need new leaders.
by
August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 461 comments)
on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 5:56:08 PM
I really like the idea of fuel prices scaled to consumption.
Since the early seventies, when I got out of the service, I have been driving high efficiency vehicles. The handwriting was on the wall then for anyone that bothered to read it. However, for that length of time I have been forced by the market to subsidize the waste of the gas hogs on American roads by dint of their greater demand for fuel driving the price higher than it would otherwise be.
The sort of pricing regime that Rob suggests that would penalize low efficiency and reward high efficiency is the ultimate in a turnabout being fair play. As a practical matter, I don't ever expect to see it at the gas station. If market prices are regulated at all, I expect that they will be set to dicourage petroleum use altogether, whether highly efficient or not. That's okay too, if it gets the needle out of our arm.
by
John Sanchez Jr. (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 1269 comments)
on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 6:32:48 PM
I worked for a fuel cell and battery research company from 1977 to 1982 which was gutted when oil became cheap. My job was to plot performance of fuel cells and batteries and I can attest that much progress was made during my 5 years of work. This was government money very well spent.
McCain's mantra of off shore drilling is not what bothers me so much. It's his professed "love for his country" yet he is unwilling to commit enough money to (lasting) basic energy research. The private sector simply does not have the resources and energy security is as vital as any other kind of security.
McCain is cut from the same cloth as Bush and Cheney and does not really care about solving America's energy dependence problem any more than needed for political cover. Ethanol made from sugercane is a vastly more efficient process than ethanol from corn, it's just a good way to get mid-West farmer votes. McCain proposes an "X-Prize" for a new battery for hybrid / electric cars but the private sector is supposed to solve problems they've struggled with for a century on their own. Why is it SO difficult to for the man to see that spending 1% of the defense budget on battery technology would likely be worth spending 50 times as much in real national security 10, 20 years from now? The Art of War says the best thing to do is avoid a war in the first place. What's SO hard to understand about this? Plug-in hybrids are likely the ONLY near term solution to America's energy problems.
People might say that Obama has "sold out" but I respect Obama much more than McCain. After 30 years of waiting around at least there's someone who has an end game in mind rather than just political cover.
by
Dan Barnes (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 at 1:38:12 AM
Re: McCain's Energy Solutions: Digging a Deeper Hole
Brilliant article Rob.
It is imperative that the American people begin to awaken and realize the magnitude of just how much fuel we are wasting in this country, and as you so succinctly stated, increase our awareness of efficient approaches to energy. We have to!
If I could digress for a moment and give one reason why.
Have you ever stopped and wondered why exactly we're fighting in Afghanistan?
There are two articles below, the second is a bit lengthy however, it validates the first. It appears we are fighting senselessly in Afghanistan for one reason and that is for the Caspian basin oil and natural gas.
The American people have to awaken from their cationic state and demand a more efficient and renewable fuel or else we'll be fighting for years all in the name of energy, and greed.
While reading the articles keep in mind that Barack Obama wants to deploy even more troops to Afghanistan. Also, one of his key advisors is none other that Zbigniew Brzezinski who wrote The Grand Chessboard. What I believe is an extremely myopic, imperialistic and very dangerous vision for the future of America. Not that I'm advocating voting for John McCain. Heck no!
Russia takes control of Turkmen (world?) gas
From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market.
As the bad news unfolds in the Caspian Basin that the US is being 'shut out' of its delusional Grand Chessboard scheme, there are other forest fires, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting in the US and UK that may well spell the doom of BushCo and the Imbecile Great Decider at the helm. He is now expendable and vulnerable to both impeachment and possible war crimes charges. Pay attention to how expendable 'Gorgon' Brown suddenly has become. Bush is next as should be most of those in DC.
Imagine a time in the United States when the price of regular gas barely reached over the $1 mark. That era was in the early 1980’s when the Federal government placed restrictions on the areas where oil could be drilled for off our nation's coast. Now we fast-forward to the present and reality hits us in the face like a concrete brick. Gas is now at a relatively high price and unfortunately, those restrictions on the outer continental shelf drilling still stand.
After much thought and research of the causes. I have come to the same conclusion as many experts that we must “DRILL HERE and DRILL NOW”. I acknowledge this is not a fix-all solution to our energy woes but merely a Band-Aid until alternative energy sources can be brought up to par with oil. However, oil is presently the life-blood of our nation and the price of gas is on the majority of American’s minds. This is accentuated by reading the following excerpt that appeared August 7, 2008 on US News and World Report’s internet site in regards to the Presidential Race.
More than half of those in a USA Today/Gallup Poll in late July said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who favored easing restrictions on offshore drilling, while one third said they'd be likelier to oppose that candidate.Moreover, the subsequent quote from an article posted August 1, 2008 on Newsweek’s website again exposes the significance of the issue at hand.
Until recently, coastal states had taken a "not in my backyard" approach to offshore drilling. But that's beginning to change, now that gas prices are hovering at or above $4 per gallon. In Florida, 60 percent of voters now support drilling off their coasts. Perhaps more surprising, a majority in eco-conscious California is also willing to tap waters off the state's shorelines.
No matter how one looks at the evidence, it all leads to one fact: The price of gasoline will continue to be unstable. According to the statistical agency of the Department of Energy, gas prices have increased as follows.
May 1993 to May 2003 by only $.40
May 2003 to May 2008 by $2.57
May 2007 to May 2008 by a whopping $1.07
Therefore, if the trend of gas prices continues at the conservative estimate of $1.07 per year, then the price for a gallon of regular gas will be as follows.
May 2009 $5.15
May 2013 $9.42
May 2018 almost $$15 dollars
Then the sudden plummet in price recently illustrates the instability of gas. It went from record high of $4.06 per gallon to an average of $3.88 nationally in just two weeks as stated on the Department of Energy’s website. This is detrimental to our country because it gives Americans the false impression that price of gas has reached its peak and thus only drop. However, this is more than likely false when considering the many factors that affect the price of gas such as the increase in world demand, the decrease in national oil production, natural disasters, and geopolitics. Geopolitics is one area that as a Nation can be removed from the equation.
Geopolitics is an issue because of the reality that most of our oil is imported although we are the third largest oil producer. In fact, 60 percent of our oil is imported as stated by the Energy Information Administration. Of that amount, 20% comes from Africa and 16% from the Persian Gulf. This is significant because any fighting in Africa or talk of war with Iran can instantly skyrocket the price of gas.
Therefore, you ask what you can do about it. Well, we must urge our Nation’s leaders to “DRILL HERE and DRILL NOW”. The Washington Post reports that 75 billion barrels of oil have been declared off limits in our own country of which would be enough oil to replace every non-North American import for 22 years. Of that 75 billion, 18 billion barrels lie in the restricted areas of the outer continental shelf as reported by the E.I.A.
Much has changed since the Federal bans on offshore drilling were enacted to include tremendous advances in technology that allows oil to be drilled with far more precision and environmental care. Not even powerful hurricanes such as Katrina and Rita caused any significant oil spills from the thousands of allowed oil well rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, the Mineral Management Service states, “over the past 20 years, less than .001 percent of the oil produced in U.S. state and federal waters have been spilled.” Furthermore, almost 60% of the oil that enters North American waters comes from natural seepage.
Like many of you, I love the beach and would be completely against offshore drilling if the slightest chance of an oil spill existed. Nevertheless, the revelation of $15 gas in just 10 years is enough for me to DEMAND CHANGE AND DEMAND IT NOW. So, sign the American Solutions petition at http://www.americansolutions.com/ to implore our Nation’s leaders to “DRILL HERE AND DRILL NOW”. In doing so, you will be heard amidst the masses of millions that feel the same pain as you instead of the government drowning out your single and silent voice.
by
Realist Unknown (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 10:15:46 PM
8 comments
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