American Energy Independence

American Energy Independence

I have been thinking lately about how important it is that the United States change its dependence on foreign energy. Getting our energy from foreign sources poses many known problems. First the United States loses national security when it can not secure energy supplies. We all know how dangerous, unpredictable, and unstable the region of the world that produces oil can be. It is not in the security interest of the United States to be getting energy supplies from this region.

Second, vast sums of money--$700 Billion dollars -- is sent out of the country and out of our economy each year to pay for oil to run our cars. Our economy could use the $700 billion dollars and we should make every effort to keep that money in our economy. No matter what you do with that money spend it on programs, reduce the debt, reduce taxes it is better to keep it here in the United States.

Third, the United States is producing vast amounts of environmental damage that could be avoided. N matter what domestic source of energy you choose, nuclear, coal, natural gas, wind, hydroelectric, and of course conservation you immediately eliminate the danger of transporting all that oil and energy around the globe.

There have been economic and poltical problems associated with the country's past dependence on foreign supply. America's past consumption of petroleum has resulted in environmental problems as well.

U.S. oil consumption is approximately 21 million barrels/day, yet production is only 6 million barrels per day (9.5×105 m³/d). Cost to import oil is approximately $200 billion dollars a year. While it costs the Arabian Peninsula just one U.S. dollar to extract a barrel of oil, the cost on the world market has varied up to $100/barrel in 2007 dollars. While U.S. oil usage increases by 2% per year, the economy has been growing at 3.3% per year. Over the past several decades, the petroleum cartel has self-imposed intentional cuts in oil production - either because they seek higher profits, or because of their protesting of American foreign policy. These production cuts have caused drops in the U.S. stock markets, but have sometimes been ameliorated by the United States releasing more of its reserves. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve currently holds about 640 million barrels (1.02×108 m³) of oil and is being filled to a level of 700 million barrels (1.1×108 m³). Should, for example, oil production be stopped entirely, or becomes depleted, the U.S. would have only 32 to 35 days of resources to fall back upon. From a national security standpoint, such a situation is untenable,[who?] and calls for the immediate incubation of long term energy solutions prior to a 'peak oil' scenario which would force the economy to grinding halt. Although additional drilling in areas such as continental shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, off the U.S. West Coast, Alaska, and the Great Lakes may stave off the inevitability of the problem, it would be only a temporary solution, and carries the risk of further polluting our environment.

Cars are our major problem in energy need. I will address this aspect first in my rants over the next few weeks.