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Energy Independence in ten years! |
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Written by Dr. Rich Swier
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Sunday, 29 June 2008 |
 Dear Sarasota Herald-Tribune Editorial Board,
Is it not time to put the good of Florida and the good of the United States above politics? Do we not all want "change"? Floridians and Americans are suffering under the extreme burden of high energy and gasoline costs. Isn't it time we look for solutions together regardless of party or ideology?
In your editorial, "On oil, the political vs. the practical" you restate what we Americans have been doing for the past 30 plus years. We have not drilled for our own oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though China and Cuba can. We have not built new refineries or nuclear power plants in over 30 and 40 years respectively. We have created environmental regulations and an EPA bureaucracy that is stopping the building of solar power plants in the deserts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. Congress has made it illegal to explore and drill for oil and natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico and ANWR in Alaska. Congress and the 50 states are requiring over 45 different mixtures of gasoline to be produced to meet state and federal mandates on pollution. Finally, we are conserving our hearts out.
All of these self-imposed restrictions have gotten us in large measure to where we are. Is it not time for a change?
Is it not time for us to think outside the box? Let's not be afraid of "change". Here are some innovative ideas that local citizens and others have proposed to move Florida and America toward energy independence. Our state legislators and Congress need to consider each of them.
1. Select one environmentally friendly emission standard and mixture of gasoline, rather than the current hundreds of emission standards that require the production of 45 plus gasoline and diesel mixtures, and produce only that. This will have an immediate impact at the pump.
2. Cut federal and state taxes on gasoline, diesel and home heating oil. A tax cut has immediate short term and long term impacts on the economy and American's pocket books. Off set tax cuts with spending cuts. That is what Americans are doing.
3. Release one-third of our strategic petroleum reserves. That would have a short term impact on gasoline and oil prices.
4. Remove regulatory restrictions on the building of new petroleum refineries, solar power plants, clean coal plants, natural gas plants and nuclear power plants.
5. Challenge scientists and entrepreneurs to find immediate and long term solutions by using American innovation and developing new technologies. The $300 million challenge to create a new battery to power our cars is a just a start.
6. Look at the massive environmental damage and human suffering caused by biofuels like corn based ethanol and move to other biomass alternative fuels and technologies such as sugarcane based ethanol/alcohol, nitrogen power, and algae based fuels.
7. Provide regulatory and tax incentives to begin pumping oil from currently abandoned wells. These may become productive in the short term given current drilling technologies.
8. Stop placing blame and move to finding solutions. More hearings and talk do nothing. Action is needed. Attacking those who have spent their lives, time and treasure exploring for and drilling or mining for our natural resources is counter productive and drives up the price of gasoline. This would be a big "change" in attitude.
9. Drill in ANWR now. The plan for drilling in ANWR involves 2,000 acres of land in Alaska's far North Eastern border. Is that any more environmentally harmful than producing 7 billion gallons of ethanol in 2007 from corn grown on an area the size of Indiana (23 million acres)?
10. Explore and drill in the Gulf of Mexico and Outer Continental Shelf. It has been illegal to do so for 30 years. This would especially benefit Florida. According to America's Power Florida gets 29.2% of our power from coal. We get 16.9% from petroleum, 38% from natural gas and 0.1% from hydroelectric. If we had our own supply of natural gas from the Gulf we could eliminate totally our use of coal and oil.
11. Recover oil from shale in areas such as the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The basin potentially contains more than three times as much recoverable oil as Saudi Arabia's proven reserves. The current high price of oil makes it profitable to extract it.
12. Require oil speculators to put up 50% of the dollar amount they bid in cash rather than working off lines of credit.
13. Instead of burying our trash let's burn it.
14. Let every American pledge to buy a car over the next 3 years that is more fuel efficient by 10 miles per gallon, whether new or used.
We would do all these things and continue to develop wind, solar and biofuels. We would all, of course, continue to conserve. However, we must recognize the limitations of wind and solar. For example to power New York city using wind power would require blanketing Connecticut (3 million acres) with turbines. To gain the maximum from solar we need to build plants in the America's deserts.
Let's work together to find solutions. Let's both agree that nothing is off the table. Let's demand that both Presidential Candidates on this 4th of July set a goal that America will be become energy independent in the next 10 years. Let's vow to keep the over $650 billion we send overseas to buy oil. Let's use that money to build new technologies, explore, drill and mine our own resources and best of all create jobs.
Let's join together and ask our readers to come up with more ideas on how we can become independent of foreign oil. No idea is to be rejected. All ideas will be submitted with forethought by the person making the suggestion. Let's pass these ideas on to our Florida Governor and legislature, our President and Congress.
Anyone with an idea on how to become energy independent please e-mail me at
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Warm Regards,
Rich
Publisher, FromTheDuke Blog
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