by B Smith

Created on: July 16, 2008

Many argue that taking advantage of this source of energy will cost too much, or that source of energy will take too long to develop, or that drilling in ANWAR won't have any noticeable effects on the price of gas for ten or more years. These arguments may all be true. So, what are we to do?

Picture yourself back in the mid-seventies. You are listening to your music on your 8-track. (If you don't know what an 8-track is, then do a Google image search and check it out. Yes, people used to listen to those huge things!) Someone comes to you and says that they can create a disc that will store 1000+ songs, will be the size of a baseball card and will cost substantially less than what you are paying now for your 8-track and the quality will be phenomenally better, but it will take 20-30 years to develop. Meanwhile, you can keep listening to your music while the improvements are made.

Do you have questions for this person?
Ask him if his company will increase their profits as a result of improving your music. Probably, most companies increase profits when they bring to market a usable/needed/wanted product or when they improve a product.
Ask him why it'll take so long.
Ask him if it safe for the environment.
Etc

Wait a minute, this has already happened. Try to avoid getting all technical and just try to apply the analogy.

If we had stopped arguing 10-20 years ago about all the periphery, we would already have in place the energy sources needed to fuel our economy. People argued back then that it would take too long. Guess what? Time continued and here we are in 2008. We still need the energy and had we built it then we would have it now!

Nuclear energy alone is NOT the answer. It is simply a piece to the puzzle. Open up more nuclear plants, drill for more oil, keep using coal, use the wind mills, harvest the power of the sun and watch what happens.

We know that we need to develop the alternative fuels. Companies are working on it and will continue to work on it. Why? Think of the company that brings to market a vehicle that runs on grass/air/water/nothing etc. and think of how much that company will earn. It is astounding to think about it.

Some argue that the safety threat is too much, that we don't want a Chernobyl and I agree. But think of this: everyday on our roads and highways we lose many people. Multiply that by 365 days, and
then well you get the idea. Are we too discontinue using cars? What about planes? They crash ya' know. Trains derail. People fall off of horses. Is the answer that we all walk? Oops, wait a minute, people fall down stairs. I know what we will do. Pass a law requiring every building to be one story and any building out there that is more than one story will be torn down.

Do you see how far we can take this argument? Build the nuclear plants and continue to work on developing ad

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