Posted by
Brandon O'Neal Wright on Thursday, January 22, 2009 11:23:54 PM
It is a country that has the largest supply of coal in the world. It has three times the amount of oil as Saudi Arabia and is also the world's largest consumer of energy. No, I am not talking about one of those oil rich countries that call the Middle East home. I am talking about the United States of America. The country that buys more foreign oil than any other country in the world yet has the energy resources to never buy another drop of foreign oil. I will break it down into our three biggest opportunities and will explain how we, as a country, could eliminate our need for foreign oil and end our unecessary energy crises right now!
Offshore drilling is currently a "bad for the environment" idea. Yeah, whatever! It is estimated, no real numbers are fact because of the reluctance of our government to allow offshore drilling and exploration, that the United States is home to approximately 86 BILLION barrels of oil off of its coasts. Currently, Americans consume roughly seven billion barrels of oil per year. You do the math. If we were only talking about the oil that is off of our coasts, you would be looking at about twelve years worth of oil. Imagine the pain that would be felt in the pocketbooks of rogue nations such as Iran if we actually decided that we were going to drill off of our shores. The impact to their terrorist economies would be substantial and would deal a great blow to their nuclear aspirations. Currently, the federal government allows leases for the development of oil on only three percent of our offshore land. That number is absolutely unacceptable! We must show the world that we are serious about our energy independence and the only way to do that is to open our coastal areas up for drilling!
Oil shale is a phrase that many Americans do not understand. Please sit down because these numbers will make you very dizzy!! Oil shale is found in a rock that sits in the Rocky Mountains and can be found in the states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. When you heat the rock, it releases a wax like substance that can be refined into oil, which we could use in our cars and trucks as well as refine into gasoline! This is the part that will make you dizzy. The United States, when congress finally decides to lift their ban on the development of this oil shale, will have access to approximately 800 BILLION barrels of oil just from that oil shale. This number does not include our oil off the coasts or in the ANWR area in Alaska. 800 BILLION barrels of oil and it is sitting right there in the Rocky Mountains. That is three times the amount of oil that is controlled by Saudi Arabia. So, you say, why don't we just go in there and get it out of the mountains? Good question. Why don't you write your congressman or woman and ask them? I am sure they would love to hear from you. If we had congressional approval to develop this shale into actual oil, we could supply our country with enough oil to see us through more than 100 years at our current consumption rate! Reading all of this, I hope you are wondering why in the world we are paying so much money for gasoline and why in the world we continue to buy our oil from terrorist minded governments who would love to destroy our way of life!
The United States is also the home to the world's largest supply of coal. Coal is responsible for over half of our electric power today. Our government needs to become much more proactive when it comes to funding the research and development of clean coal technology. Could you imagine if we could take coal and convert it into liquid fuel? Sound impossible to you? Consider the fact that South Africa has been doing it for decades and then ask yourself why were are allowing South Africa to beat us in the world of clean coal! Sad, huh? Developing sound clean coal technology could rid ourselves of foreign enrgy altogether and put us on a path to energy independence!
The answer to our energy crises seems very simple to me. Start drilling offshore now, start developing our oil shale into actual oil and start funding clean coal technology. The federal government, listening to their "pro environment" buddies, does not see the solution that clearly. They think that the solution to our energy crises is to raise the taxes on energy, thus lowering our use of that energy. Instead of fixing the real problem and becoming energy independent, they want to try and tell you how to live your life! That is both wrong and extremely dangerous. If we continue to buy the majority of oil from foreign countries, we are not only sending our dollars to foreign governments, but we are actually funding their side of our war on terror. Consider the fact that Iran is aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapon that they would gladly sell or use and it is pretty easy to realize that buying oil from them is not such a good idea. To the environmental extremists, I ask you which would be worse for the global environment, drilling off of our coasts or watching helplessly while Iran lights the fuse of a nuclear weapon? The answer is pretty clear to me!