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United States Could Be Energy Independent If…
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by BMCWrites | November 4, 2009 at 02:23 pm
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The United States could be energy independent if it possessed the collective political will to make it happen. After all, the country has the largest energy reserves on earth, according to a recently-released Congressional Research Service report.
As shown in the first chart below, the United States' 1,321 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) tops number 2 Russia with 1,248 billion BOE, and number 3 Saudi Arabia with 543 billion BOE.
The second chart shows that the U.S. also holds the world's largest supply of affordable coal.
So why isn't the United States energy independent? Answering that question is actually fairly easy.
For more than 30 years, radical environmentalists and misinformed others -- including members of the news media, nonprofit groups and politicians -- have worked tirelessly to reshape the eco-political landscape, to paint those in "Big Oil" and "Big Coal" as evil and to frame an argument that says the needs of animals and the environment trump the needs of human beings.
Contrary to the leftist views, the vast majority of firms involved in all stages of the oil and natural gas supply chain operate in a manner that is cleaner and friendlier to animals and the environment than virtually any other industry. Why? Because, like most people, they want to leave a clean planet for their children and grandchildren. In addition, they do it because they have to as a result of being more tightly regulated than perhaps any other industry on the planet. For a great op-ed about how the industry works today, click here.
And what about the so-called "clean energy" alternatives, wind and solar power? They haven't proved themselves economical; otherwise, the "money-hungry fossil fuel executives" would have exploited them for huge financial gain by now (sarcasm).
A third clean-energy alternative, nuclear power, has proven itself, but faces so many environmental and political roadblocks that it's prospects for expansion are almost nil. Plus, already-operating nuclear power plants are now forced to deal with how they will dispose of their waste following President Barack Obama's decision to shutdown Yucca Mountain -- a site the government has spent $13 billion to develop over 25 years -- as a site for storing it.
EDITOR'S NOTE: If you think our elected officials in Washington, D.C., should focus on truly making this country energy independent by allowing oil and natural gas companies to harvest the vast resources available, CONTACT THEM TODAY and demand they work toward that end. The result will be an increase in jobs for Americans and a decrease in the costs of goods and services for everyone.
Originally published at BobMcCarty.com.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 15:09 on November 4th, 2009
Fuel for Thought
The coal industry and its allies are spending more than $60 million to promote the notion that coal is clean. But so far, “clean coal” is little more than an advertising slogan.
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2014
The high rate of fossil fuel consumption causes considerable damage to our environment because carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted when fossil fuels combust. The extra carbon dioxide in the environment can cause global climate changes.
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00927/
at 15:17 on November 4th, 2009
I see you're living on a different planet than I am. People on my planet rely upon facts, not fairy tales like the ones you've posited above.
at 03:11 on November 5th, 2009
Wake Up Call to anybody in the industry: Indeed the west and specifically the US have the major resources in energy underground easy accessible too. Using the coal reserve resource for energy will keep the money in the country, creating millions of jobs and making the west nonindependent from the middle east where our money for fossil fuel is used to sponsor terrorist activities. Why not use the Coal-to-liquid Technologies that do exist since the 1920s. Only recently new developments have made its conversion process more efficient and economical. For years it was simply too expensive compared to pumping oil out of the ground. This process require a great deal of heat, heat derived from coal combustion. This process is referred to as Indirect Liquefaction. A major disadvantage of the technique is that the amount of coal used for heat in the coal-to-liquid process is greater than the amount converted to fuel. As a result, this process produces large amounts of CO2 , ash, fly ash, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides - N2O, not to mention the enormous waste of coal. The making of hydrogen for the process forms the bulk of pollutants produced from direct liquefaction, but the creation of these pollutants can be largely avoided by separating the hydrogen with heat generated from a new generation of super-safe nuclear reactors. Electrical power production from nuclear energy does not produce any CO2 or N2O emissions. With this type of energy clean diesel fuel can efficiently be extracted from coal.We all should fight for this in the utmost interest of our industrialized nations!