This is a post I made on our local newspaper forum. I just watched Chaim's video on electric cars & eliminating or reducing our use of terrorist oil. I thought in light of Chaim's proposal I'd post this here.
Let's solve our energy dependence on foreign oil. I think if both sides liberal & conservative give a little, we can agree to an energy strategy that we both can live with.
Liberals are the GREEN people. BUT, believe it or not, conservatives love the planet too! We love trees. (we just don't hug them unless we are falling out of our tree stands). Seriously, we don't want to pollute our planet. We love nature. We don't want to see the environment destroyed or even harmed.
Liberals want clean air & water. Conservatives DRINK water TOO. We even bathe! (I think we bathe even more than liberals do), Conservatives don't want pollution of the air or water or land.
Liberals HATE oil & oil companies. Conservatives don't hate them, but we don't love them either. We can compromise here. I know that liberals think that compromise means just agreeing with them and doing it THEIR way, but if you would bend just a little, the oil companies would have to find something else to sell.
Liberals are animal people. Conservatives love them too! (animals that is) We love to EAT them! JUST KIDDING! (well, half kidding) We love animals just as much as liberals do. I have 5 dogs who live in my house with us. They are our children. We hate to see animals suffer needlessly. We don't want to see them harmed or exploited.
1. Ending our dependence on, First. Middle East oil. Then on foreign oil,
Then on oil PERIOD.
Short term liberal concession. Allow RESPONSIBLE drilling in Anwar and Gulf of Mexico. Environmental concerns here are WILDLY exaggerated. We can do this safely. We have been for years.
Develop CLEAN coal technology. I know we are working on it, let's fund it, research it, and impose it on the coal industry. I'll gladly pay for this. I'll pay for increased mine safety as well.
Build new nuclear power plants as fast as we can. We have the technology and the safety record already. They are NON polluting, produce great quantities of electricity for reasonable cost.
Fund and create the hydrogen fuel infrastructure as fast as possible. Drop bio fuel and other such ideas and put all our efforts into one technology. Hydrogen. Let's skip Beta vs. VHS and LCD vs. Plasma and go right to the solution. The oil companies can switch to hydrogen companies. They can still sell milk & beer. Like the phasing in of unleaded gas. We phase in hydrogen. NO MORE OIL. (as there is no more LEADED gasoline).
Why hydrogen? Because it is the PERFECT answer. The technology already exists. It is pollution FREE. The only byproduct is water. As safe or safer than gasoline. It's an electric car without the batteries. It's an electric car that when you plug it in your house at night, instead of buying electric from NYSEG you will be SELLING excess electricity TO NYSEG.
Vehicles can be made with a basic platform that will accept any body style you want revolutionizing the auto industry. Too good to be true, you say.
www.wind-hydrogen.com/Hydrogen%20fuel%20stations%20article%20060707.pdf Projects in California & Florida are already in the works.
This is where you greens can put to use your windmills, solar panels, etc to power hydrogen production so it will be 100% green. Also a MAJOR benefit to greens is that the production of hydrocarbons (which they say is causing global warming) will be GREATLY reduced. We won't have to argue whether man is causing global warming or not. It's win, win.
Let's quit far ting around (oops that causes global warming) and get busy promoting the hydrogen fuel solution. GREEN energy independence from foreign oil in the near future. Let's just DO IT.
Currently existing California hydrogen highway extended to Canada would make a West Coast 2000 mile international hydrogen highway.
www.greencoast.org/node/57035 Get on board or get out of the way.
Before anyone brings up ethanol or bio-diesel as an alternative, this is a non starter. Most are blended with oil products. Let's get rid of oil completely. There isn't enough farm land to grow the crops necessary to produce enough bio-fuel to fuel our vehicles. It just drives up the cost of food. Also I have seen where the processing costs make it unviable without subsidies. How can we or other countries turn FOOD producing land into FUEL producing land when people are STARVING? Also if it becomes profitable will countries clear cut more "rain forests" (previously known as jungles) to grow the cash crop to produce ethanol. Ethanol is LOSE, LOSE. It is just payola to the mega farmers in the Midwest. Your tax dollars wasted. I heard a joke once, maybe you haven't heard it.
An employee of the agriculture department found a fellow employee sobbing in his office. He asked him what was the matter? He answered
"My farmer just died".