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Hernando Today

What Will It Take?

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By DONALD J. MYERS

A Mind of My Own

Published: May 24, 2008

What will it take for the American people to become angry enough to demand that the government cease restricting drilling in ANWR and the Gulf Coast, building nuclear power plants and building new refineries?
It seems to me that we may finally be approaching that point. Gas prices continue to rise and the government continues to blame the oil companies. Today, May 21, the Senate Congressional Committee held hearings and had many of the oil executives appear before it. First of all, what has this committee to do with the production or cost of oil? It has nothing to do with it, but merely another occasion for senators to strut before TV cameras and appear as though they are concerned.
One merely needs to listen to each of the members postulate about the problem to realize that they know nothing about how a business operates. One of the oil executives said it succinctly: "This is not a free market when we are not allowed to drill for oil or build new refineries."
In France about 70 percent of its energy comes from nuclear power. Can one imagine how that would affect the United States if 70 percent of our electricity came from other than oil?
There are those who state that we must conserve or develop alternative energy sources. Solar and wind sources are examples that immediately come to mind and are constantly espoused as alternatives. They each may assist, but as of this time, nothing is available to replace oil.
Supply and demand dictate the price of oil, and unfortunately, there is not enough supply. Sen. Barack Obama, one of the Democratic candidates for the presidency, said before a crowd on Tuesday that the U.S. uses 25 percent of the world's energy and is only 3 percent of the world's population and the rest of the world is tired of that fact.
He went on to say that we might not be able to keep our thermostats at 72 degrees. This sounds like President Jimmy Carter when he suggested that we wear sweaters during the winter rather than raise the thermostats in our homes. Both are ignorant of the facts that this is not a zero sum game.
Has anyone noticed that the amount of oil available in the world has continued to rise even though we use more each year? Could it be that oil is being created much like trees growing? As long as there is a sufficient supply of oil to meet the demand, an alternative will be long in coming.
The major problem continues to be that demand grows faster than supply. Our president asked Saudi Arabia to produce more oil and its leaders said that the county had already increased its output.
Why do we not increase our own output? Oh, I forgot. The environmentalists control Congress, and they are against it.
I am sure that in the future there will be autos that operate effectively and efficiently on batteries, but as of this time we are not there. We can reduce the size of autos, and there is a cost associated with that — deaths. As cars become smaller, they become less safe, and the mortality rate dramatically increases.
I suspect that our government will soon be on the horns of a dilemma. The people will demand real changes and the environmentalists will continue to preach that conservation is the only answer. I do not desire to return to the days of the buggies and horse-drawn carriages.

Donald J. Myers, a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps., is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill and can be contacted at DMyersUSMC@aol.com.

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