How will you end America's dependence on foreign oil?

[JohnT]

There were a lot of options that weren't explored, including improving technology to get more oil out of existing wells, allowing oil exploration along the Eastern seaboard (including inland into NY, GA, VA, and the Everglades/Okefenokee swamps, tax cuts for the oil industry, or other such effective measures.

[Dinner]

Independence is a dream. We can cut our dependence down hoever. Increasing fuel economy and replacing fossile fuel power plants with nuclear power plants would decrease our dependency and decrease our green house gas output at economicly feasable prices.

[JohnT]

There are lots of ways to tweak the formula. Again, to me the issue isn't dependance upon foreign oil, it's our dependence upon foreign oil controlled by governments antithetical to our very Civilization.

[Dinner]

True, Mexican and Canadian oil isn't worrisome nor is European oil. Arab oil...

[Drake Tungsten]

Where's the option to conquer the rest of the world so that all oil is domestic?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin
True, Mexican and Canadian oil isn't worrisome nor is European oil. Arab oil...

Is Oil.

The idea of "oil independence" is moronic. Oil is a global commodity. States that have it will sel it to those that use it. That simple. THe US will in the future simply not be able to take enough oil out of itself to feed it needs, so it will go on the global market, and those who have the most oil will benefit the most.

It seems rather obvious, clear, and beyond question. And yet this poses so many problems....fantastical.

[Kuciwalker]

Zero-point energy.

[Mordoch]

While the simulator brings up one half of a possible solution to the problem, it completely leaves out the other half, which makes the first half virtually useless.

Electric powered and Hydrogen powered cars merely represent a different energy storage solution not a new form of energy production . You still have to get that enegery from somewhere.

While the future we may eventually get viable commercial fusion power, in the shorter term fission nuclear power is the solution, and is actually what people who really care about the enviroment should be advocating.

When I declare that the U.S. desperately needs to become more like France, some of my friends get upset. But hold your anger, keep eating your Freedom Fries, and let me explain. The real reason to emulate the French is that 75% of their electrical power use is derived from nuclear reactors.

The U.S. right now generates about 50% of its electric power from coal and only about 15% from nuclear reactors. No new nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. since the early 1970s, thanks in part to misguided environmental activists reacting to the Three Mile Island (3MI) meltdown, but also to really cheap natural gas and oil in the 70's and 80's. We will never see cheap oil and gas again thanks to huge increases in demand from India and China that is here to stay. We need to start building new nuclear power plants and catch up with our erstwhile friends those French, without whom we never would have won the American Revolution.

While the only by-product of a nuclear power plant that finds its way into the surroundings is hot water, coal fired plants spew out about 90% of all the pollutants given off by power production in the U.S. These include sulfur dioxides (acid rain), various nitrogen oxides (read smog), mercury, lots of carbon dioxide, (greenhouse gas, anyone?), and more radioactive gases than the virtually zero amounts given off by nuclear plants. Even relatively clean natural gas fired power plants still release significant amounts of pollutants and lots of carbon dioxide.

Opponents of nuclear power always point out that operating nuclear reactors create radioactive gases that are released into the atmosphere. Not true! The radioactive gases generated by a nuclear reactor are held in holding tanks until they decay into harmless, non-radioactive gases. Only then are they released into the atmosphere.

Along with coal, another energy choice we might consider in lieu of nuclear is hydroelectric. Building big new dams is probably even more expensive than building new nuclear plants, but the advantage is there is no waste or emissions at all. In the bargain, however, we lose all those wild rivers that rafters, kayakers, and myriad wild creatures love so much. In addition, we create huge new lakes that not only ruin the local environment, but also give jet boaters a place to zoom around in and make lots of noise. Let's not forget about what dams do to migrating fish populations such as salmon. As for "green" dams? Well if you think a regular dam costs a lot...

Remaining alternatives to nuclear power, such as wind and solar, are promising technologies but can't offer constant baseload power generation like hydroelectric and nuclear power. Moreover, solar power is still far too expensive to be developed on a scale sufficient to replace coal or nuclear power and meet growing worldwide energy demands. Also, windmills, as do new oil refineries and nuclear plants, evince the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) response. It is estimated that photovoltaic solar power costs about 23 cents per kilowatt hour (could get cheaper as new technologies evolve), while conventional coal and natural gas plants cost about half that. Nuclear power weighs in at less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.

I was against the widespread use of nuclear power back in the hippy sixties and seventies for the usual reasons at the time: China Syndrome meltdowns, what to do with radioactive waste, Homer Simpson like reactor workers, and poor regulation and corruption. That was then, this is now. Several icons of the environmental movement, apostates like me, believe that the aforementioned nuclear power problems have been solved. Nuclear power is simply the most environmentally friendly way to generate electrical power, cleanly and economically.

http://www.ecoworld.com/Home/Articles2.cfm?TID=375

(Read the rest of the article for the rest of his argument and more info.)

Nuclear Power would also have the shorter term benefit of being able to quickly replace the portion of our current power plants that are oil powered.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by JohnT
Our problem isn't "dependence upon foreign oil", our problem is our willingness to buy from the cheapest source, which happens to be a group of second-rate countries most representing a third-rate tradition of civilization whom happens to be antithetical to the West.

So... knowing that this is but a game, I support a minimum price of a barrel of oil to be $50.

It won't work of course, but what the hell. $50 a barrel and we'll be able to put so much oil online in friendly places like Canada, Texas, the UK and others that we would tell Saudi Arabia to kiss our ass (and our petrodollars) goodbye.

Indeed. Once the price you're willing to pay us goes more than 1 or 2 dollars over the market price I guarantee you that you'll be buying all your oil from us.



Holy ****, we'd make a fortune, and the Arabs would begin to wonder why we suddenly started buying 10 times as much oil as we used to from them.

[JohnT]

Note above comments about "games" and "dreaming".

[KrazyHorse]

I'm dreaming of that proposition too.

I'm dreaming about setting up my own petroleum re-exporting business and taking the clueless Yanks for everything they own...

[JohnT]