Either that or he's completely clueless on this whole oil drilling business.
How's that hopey change working out for ya?
There is a reason they're doing this, to block off oil production within and around the US. It would appear as though we are being kept "dependent on foreign oil," but that is a smokescreen for an ulterior motive - strategic. The idea is to leave our oil supply alone and use up our hostiles' supplies so that when we do go to war with them, they will not be able to fight back because they won't have fuel to power their military forces, a lesson learned by Germany when their resources were cut off during WWII. The US wants to make sure it doesn't happen. There's Saudi Arabia, Russia, UAE. Now, I'm not sure why Canada has been our largest importer. We would want to use less of their oil if the strategy was the case, so that we could use it later when crunch time came.
A problem I see with this strategy is being cut off from oil before the exporters to the US runs out. Another would be the possibility that oil creation within the earth is not biogenic-based, but abiogenic-based.
The Soviet Union supported the latter theory back in the '50s to the '80s. The abiogenic hypothesis argues that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. The presence of methane on Saturn's moon Titan is cited as evidence supporting the formation of hydrocarbons without biology. Supporters of the abiogenic hypothesis suggest that a great deal more petroleum exists on Earth than commonly thought, and that petroleum may originate from carbon-bearing fluids that migrate upward from the mantle. If that's the case, then the peak oil theory of flat-running-out may simply be a cover to justify the oil companies' charging $100-150 a barrel. In other words, ripping us off at the pump. AND the militaries around the world would still be able to defend themselves for a long time...
We'll have to see now the next 20 years plays out. I did notice, however, that no national policy or direction has been SOLIDLY laid down. Just saw them saying "WE NEED TO GET OFF OIL!" They're not addressing HOW do we do that. Problem is, with our current technology, you HAVE to use oil to make energy; to make energy to power the power tools and equipment used to even build a NUCLEAR power plant. First of all, you have to have tractors to make the roads accessible so that trucks can get out there and install power lines or generators to power said building equipment. What about the petroleum-based sheaths on the power lines made to not only protect them from corrosion, but also shorts and coming in contact with the ground and killing animals that land on the wires? What are you going to use to power the furnaces that refine the ores into usable, malleable materials used to manufacture a nuclear plant? You have to follow these same principles even when building a solar panel factory. You have to start somewhere. The technology we use today is manufactured with many layers of previous technology in terms of type of fuel used to make this stuff, like our cell phones, our computers, our fancy, useless digital hearing aids.
What we have to do is instead of continuing on the path we're on, use the petroleum-based technology we have now to leverage ourselves into clean energy, and then one day, we can use clean energy to power the equipment used to build the access roads and lay power lines out to a clean-energy power plant. We can use the clean energy for anything at that point.
We are decades away from this, because you have infrastructure to replace, i.e., gas stations, delivery/distribution systems, converting landfills to waste-to-energy power plants with zero emissions, even the vehicles, tractors, engines for the trains. On top of this, you have to acknowledge the politics of an industry about to undergo a massive change. Unlike before, with major technological changes, i.e., going from horse-and-buggy to cars, going from railroads to tractors on highways, going from railroads to planes for long passenger hauls, you can't just close the industry down and lay everyone off WITHOUT giving support to transition all of them to other lines of work. Train the train engineers to be pilots, the engine mechanics to be aircraft power plant mechanics, the people maintaining the train hardware to be aircraft mechanics, etc. Not that I would advocate going to less efficient forms of mass transit for heavy-tonnage cargo, but it did happen to a great degree as technology progressed. You have to offer the industry players an incentive to make the transition, like "If you'll go to school to learn to harness geothermal wells, not only will we pay for your education, we will look at your current salary and help you maintain that while you go to school so you don't have to make disruptive financial changes to your lifestyle." Otherwise, forget it. If the incentive doesn't happen, it most likely will not happen within my lifetime (next 50-80 years).
If the incentive to change does not happen, then you might have to consider on a personal level whether it would be risky to get the education to work for a solar panel manufacturing plant, a windmill farm in Texas, or at one of the geothermal plants in the west. If your families are of the generational type, meaning you tend to follow your parents into the lines of work they do or take over their businesses, then these areas would do very well for the next 80 years, PROVIDED that things work out that way. You know how that goes...
Oh, one more thing - what are you going to use to generate power to recharge those electric cars? Even if we all had electric cars, we'd have to generate a massive amount of electricity in order to keep them charged.
The only viable alternative I see is to go back to horse and buggies AND GET THE SNIP-SNIP, PEOPLE. Quit making babies. I've already done my part; it won't happen with me, no matter who I'm with. :P
Stephanie
