Drilling Isn't Stand Alone Long Term Panacea: It's Just the Way Out of Our Economy Killing Mess to an Alternate Energy Future

Lest there be any misunderstanding, K.R.'s advocacy of expeditiously removing all of the multiple government road blocks to fast tracking exporation for, and development and refining of domestic sources of oil, doing so is not by itself a long term solution to our energy problems.

Notwithstanding the nay saying morons in Congress, we do need to expand, modernize, and add to our oil refineries, and at the same time tap our offshore and ANWR sources of oil.

That alone will have immediate salutary effects. It would signal that we are shedding our "gouge me" signs by sending a message that America is moving to reduce in the foreseeable future, and perhaps to eliminate at some future date its dependence on foreign oil suppliers. The end of our funding of those who wish us ill and seek to do us harm would be in sight.

The connection in time of two events does not prove that the first to occur caused the second one. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the mostly symbolic reversal of the executive ban on offshore oil drilling was followed within days by a $15 drop in the price of a barrel of oil. The executive action was largely meaningless without similar action by Congress. One can only fantasize about having a Congress made up of members capable of thinking about this.

Instead, we have doltish dim bulbs who mindlessly repeat that if their drilling restrictions were lifted it would be seven years -- down incidentally from earlier ten year claims -- before any oil from new domestic sources reached the market. This of course ignores that more than half of this time would be devoted to meeting governmental and permitting requirements, many of which could be streamlined and fast tract along with the exploration and production processes.

Despite the foregoing and the vast supplies potentially available from our western shale and sand deposits, oil is a finite and limited resource. We at some point are going to run out and require other sources of energy.

Unlike the vacuous mental midgets who rattle around in the big
clown house atop the D.C.'s Capitol Hill, I do not claim the ability to foresee what the future holds. In fact I wish I was as sure about anything as the clown house lackwits are about virtually everything.

My best current guess -- and it only a guess even though I am far more familiar with energy resources and technology than our elected reprehensibles -- is that our portable power needs eventually will be met by hydrogen fuel cell powered engines and that our stationary energy needs will be filled by a multitude of sources among which there will be many nuclear powered generating plants. We know how to build these plants and we ought to get going with them right now.

Another very good idea we ought to be pursuing right now is the development and production of motor vehicles powered by engines capable of operating with a wide variety of different fuels.

The sum total of all of the foregoing is that the things we need to do now -- developing our domestic sources of oil, increasing our refining capacity, multi-fuel vehicles, building many more nuclear power plants -- probably are merely interim measures. They are necessary to get us to future sources of energy without our in the meantime remaining in thrall to largely hostile foreign powers and their demands for tribute in the form of exorbitant oil prices and without destroying our economy by continuing indefinitely our current need to accede to those demands.

It also behooves us to recognize that our population includes a good many environmental Luddites and other individuals who for various ideological reasons desire to see our country and its economy reduced to some third world level at which citizens can more easily be homogenized, disciplined, and trained to function as dependent, obedient and servile drones. These individuals are easily recognized by their opposition to all currently available sources of energy and support only for those that do not now actually exist.