National Energy Crisis Demands Immediate Action

I guess my admittedly flippant response to the first letter Dallas Dunlop wrote pushed a few of his hot buttons and for that, I suppose, I owe him an apology. It was all meant in good fun and certainly not intended to be insulting. Having said that, I still think he totally missed my point. I never for a moment claimed that we are not in the midst of a national energy crisis; nor did I wish to create the impression that we have nothing to worry about or that we are sitting on gazillions of barrels of oil.

Here is where our opinions diverge. Environmentalists didn't close the oil fields on June 7; they did that 25 or 30 years ago when they put 80 or 90 percent of our coastline and Alaska off limits to drilling! In western oil fields there is an estimated 1 trillion barrels of oil in shale rock. At what price does this become economically feasible to exploit? Dad, are we there yet? Who makes it happen, the oil companies or the government by lifting restrictions? OPEC didn't suddenly stop shipping oil. They simply limited production in the face of the rapidly expanding economies of India and China and their burgeoning thirst for crude. It grows daily and this thirst does indeed cause an imbalance in supply and demand!

Hey, this is no shockingly sudden development. We are in this mess because of our dependence on imported oil for far too many years and our steadfast refusal to do anything about it. In as much as we may or may not have had or will have sufficient oil deposits to totally wean us off this dependence, undoubtedly our lot would be in much better staid had we been developing whatever resources there are. But while I understand that we are not going to drill our way out of this fiasco, might it buy us a little time while alternative technologies are developed and/or implemented? Maybe $4 gas is just the kick in the butt we needed to do this. But who gets the ball rolling? The oil industry, or the private sector at large, fired up by the demands of the marketplace. Somebody said Ford cut the production of SUV's due to lack of demand. We certainly aren't going to get the proverbial "Act of Congress." The Democrats are too busy fashioning a crown of thorns for Dubya and the Republicans left town seven years ago.

The value of the dollar is down. That is because the dollar is one of our major exports! We import oil and export dollars. Any gains we make on our trade deficits are quickly overshadowed by the increase in our oil imports. Speculators go to town when market conditions are right for profiteering and, yes, a casual mentioning of the word war or a hurricane or an earthquake can affect market conditions. Same as a threat of a hog cholera outbreak affects the price of sow bellies. By the way, do oil companies buy oil futures? Just asking.

Does all this mean we should remove the threat of dire consequences to an enemy who is making nuclear weapons and who daily reiterates their desire for the total annihilation of our country and those of our allies? My guess is that it would not generate any warm fuzzy feelings on the part of the Ayatollahs, but, conversely, these Islamofacists would be emboldened. Keep turning the other cheek and eventually you get slapped silly.

My logic is this: When faced with a casualty the first step is stopping the bleeding. Immediately begin the conversion of all oil-fired power generating stations to coal or natural gas and start the construction of nuclear power generators. (Like refineries, there hasn't been one built in 30 years.) Immediately require all oil companies to funnel a significant portion of their windfall profits to increasing existing refinery capacity or face severe tax consequences and the loss of subsidies. And finally, let the drilling begin! Tap the massive natural gas deposits in the Gulf and drill some more! Could be those speculators might be as influenced by the word glut as they were by the word war.

Finally, I still don't know what you meant by a "whole new infrastructure." But far from ridicule, my point was that if I wanted to live like a European, I would move to Europe. We are a resilient lot and our ingenuity and resourcefulness can and will get us out of this mess. You are right! The long-term solution is not oil. In the meanwhile, let's place the blame where it truly belongs; in the laps of our dumkoph partisan politicians, the greedy oil company execs and the militant environmentalists. They should all be lined up against a wall and pelted with week-old recalled tomatoes! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Tom Cannariato

Weeki Wachee