by Rand E Oertle

Created on: March 01, 2011   Last Updated: March 02, 2011

To understand precisely what we must do to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil it is critical to understanding exactly what oil dependence means.  Eighty-five percent of America’s energy use comes from fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources provide us with about 3%. That is a critical disparity to understand when it threatens our whole economy if we attempt to eliminate fossil fuels.  Alternative sources can’t possibly replace these fuels any time soon.  Failure to take advantage of our own energy resources would mean economic suicide in America and that is the path we are now on.

Today our oil dependence accurately means that other countries are in nearly full-control of our economic and energy future.  By America failing to tap into our indigenous energy reserves we are committing energy abdication. Our refusal to apply any semblance of reasonable effort to harvest all available energy here in America weakens us and our economic and personal futures. We will, as one pundit predicted, reduce our economy to number three worldwide because of our current aggressively destructive energy policies.

America’s most devastating energy problem is the deceitful indoctrination of school children and naïve Americans, pushed by environmentalists, that coal, oil and nuclear power is irretrievably bad and that we can transition to wind and solar power from coal, oil, hydro, nuclear and gas in the near future.  That solution is simply impossible and ethically dishonest.

Solar, wind and ethanol need huge taxpayer subsidies (read taxpayer money) just to stay functional and will for at least twenty years. They cannot provide the power amounts necessary for decades, if ever. Those subsidies come at a time when our economy is tipping on the edge of the economic abyss.  These three sources will be marginal at best well into the future.  The Wall Street Journal reports that “solar energy is subsidized at $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.”

Environmentalists’ assumption that we can abruptly, simply and inexpensively switch from gas in vehicles to electric cars, is also wildly unrealistic especially when you include transport vehicles.  The infrastructure to create “filling” stations alone would be a mammoth undertaking,

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