It occurred to me that we truly are living under a suppressive govt. When the hell did that happen? When the environmentalists got a say that’s when, but that’s for a different post. It occurred to me that our “energy crisis” is primarily caused by govt, no one else. We haven’t built a refinery since the 70’s, no new nuke plants in a long time, can’t drill for oil in the gulf or in ANWAR, All this is because of govt regulation. It’s not that difficult to fix folks, turn us loose! If the suppression of government was lifted we could have all the power we would ever need and be making most of it ourselves. It’s been said that the oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico rival those in Saudi Arabia. Wouldn’t it be nice to start pumping that stuff out in earnest and then offer the Saudi’s about $25 bucks a barrel for their oil? If they didn’t like that price tell oh well, see how well your camels like oil in their oats.
Our energy woes are akin to trying to run a race with the hand brake on; let go of the damn brakes! We take a hell of a lot better care of our environment than any one else in the world does. We can drill, pump, and develop all the power we need if the govt would just get the hell out of the way, and do it in a way that would be environmentally responsible.
July 16, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I think our energy woes are all due directly to the fact that oil has been profitable AND affordable for so long. No one wanted to expend the money for new technology because the old technology was working. Thats why there arent more fuel efficient cars out there, there just wasnt the demand.
Alternative sources will be (at the beginning) a huge expenditure and highly unprofitable for some time. Today, everything is about the now. If you are a CEO and you tell the shareholders that you want to spend a pile of money that will not make money for even 5 years, you are going to be ousted. It took these high oil prices to make change happen, and I think we will now see new technologies develop and grow faster than we have in our life times.
As to the refineries, what pisses me off about that is the oil companies claim to be at or near capacity NOW, yet they want to drill in more places. Screw you. Build us some new refineries and we will open up the fields. I know EPA is a pain in the ass about it, but hey, You gotta spend money to make money.