Family Reunion in Washington

Well, time for another update. I am right now sitting at my parents kitchen table (well, I just moved to the living room) enjoying a family reunion. We actually will have by midnight tonight all our family, including spouses and kids. That is quite a feat. We just spent some time together playing games, having dinner, and talking. It is nice to be able to have everyone here. About half of us flew and the other half drove, which brings me to todays purpose in writing. I cannot believe how much it cost us to drive over here. Gas prices are just getting ridiculous. It is so frustrating to see the political machine at work (or not at work as the case may be). I have seldom seen politics rise to the level of absurdity that they have recently.

First of all, let me state my beliefs on energy and energy independence. I am a firm believer that we, the United States of America, should be able to provide for all of our energy needs. We are one of the most blessed lands as far as natural resources go. We have an abundance of so many things that most other nations could only wish to put their hands on. There is no reason for us to need to import any natural resource that we can get on our own in our own lands. We are fools if we make ourselves slaves to other nations (especially enemies) through dependance on their benevolence and desire for mutual gratification. Oh wait, we have already done that...

That being said, I don't believe that oil is the only answer for our problems. Normally I am against and kind of bill that has the word "comprehensive" in it. I don't believe that congress should take on more than 1 item at a time because when they do, someone always figures out a way to add funding for a Spotted Sparrow museum into the war funding act. The museum gets funding because nobody wants to vote against the war funding. It is a big shell game that we all lose (and the politicians are the only winners). However, I believe that we need, as a nation, to have a "comprehensive energy policy" in order to help us to get energy independent and for us to be able to sustain our growth. Here are the things I believe we should do (and this means immediately).

First, we should open up offshore drilling grounds. Why is it that we let all the other nations, using slant drilling techniques, to take the oil that is rightfully within our borders. Why do other nations, considered far more environmentally friendly than the United States, allow offshore drilling in their countries? Can it be done in an environmentally friendly way, absolutely. I hear so many people talk about how it will take 15 years for us to benefit from any oil exploration now. What a bunch of bull. We may not get any oil from it for 15 years, but it will benefit us now. Many now claim that oil speculation is one of the major reasons for the increase in oil prices. If that is true, then just knowing that oil will be flowing through the pipelines and shipping lanes in 10-15 years will be enough to drive prices down in the short term. Back in the 70's when we had the energy crisis and President Carter declared that we were going to invest in all kinds of new technologies, the price of oil went down. The middle eastern countries did not want us to take advantage of our own resources because that meant that we would not be buying from them. The same thing will happen again this time. The current prices are not sustainable. We have too many technologies that are reasonable at $80 a barrel that we would never consider when oil was at $20 a barrel. The market is all about opinion of what is going to happen in the future. Show the world we are serious about energy independence (and really mean it), and we will see prices come down.

The second part of my plan is to start building more nuclear power plants. Even with all the waste from nuclear energy production, it is still the cleanest energy we have. If people would just stop the "not in my backyard" mentality and start looking at the benefits of nuclear energy, we could move this country to the next phase of energy independence. One of the greatest strengths of the American people is their ingenuity and perserverence. We can solve any problem we set out minds to. Someone out there right now has an idea of how to make transporting and storing of nuclear waste safer and more efficient. That person (or persons) just have to get the right people together and we will have the answer. How do you think all those electric cars are going to get charged up? We need this capacity.

Next, we need to put some of that ingenuity into coming up with cleaner coal technology. We have an abundance of coal in this country. Already we have reduced drastically the emissions from coal fired electricity plants. We just need to do more. If we can find a way to scrub the carbon dioxide from these plants (and I have already heard of a few very feasable inventions that already work), we can take advantage of the vast wealth of coal we have at our fingertips.

On an additional energy source note, someone needs to do something about the way we store our electricity. The current batteries we use for our electric and hybrid cars are a joke. They are way too big and environmentally unfriendly. When we start needing to replace all these batteries, where are they going to go? What will our landfills look like with 50,000 very large battery systems from the Prius's? What kind of impact will that have on our environment? I sure hope that there are lots of super smart people working on a new type of battery right now. If not, then our capabilities in the electric car department will be severely limited.

Lastly (for now), we need to put some brain power into our renewable natural resources. That would include wind, solar, hydroelectric, and tidal power to name a few. Of all of those, the only reliable one is the tidal power. Not too many people have spent much energy on this type, but I believe that the constant flow of the tides could be an incredible, constant source of energy. The others (solar and wind) that so many people talk about are important, but not for critical systems. They are too unpredictable. I see the best use of these is in individual power generation. Put solar shingles on your roof, put a windmill on your property, put up solar panels in your yard. These are great for a variety of purposes. Keep your electric bill down, take strain off the system, have power when there is a grid outage. Great solutions that we can start to implement now to help us in our personal lives.

Anyone who says that we cannot be totally self reliant in our energy needs is either uninformed, illogical, or being too political. We need to take the politics out of energy policy. If we can put all these pieces together into a comprehensive energy policy, we can be truly energy independent. That is what we need now, not political bickering and posturing. Normally I think that the less that gets done in Washington D.C. the better, but this is one time I think they need to get off their (well, you get the idea) and do something right for this country.

God bless you, God bless the United States, keep your chin up.

Anthony