PDA

View Full Version : Oil & US Politics




dave27
11-13-2002, 03:33 PM
http://www.msnbc.com/news/828221.asp

I thought this was interesting - especially with the potential Stirling News from Kamen & Co.

What do you make of Kamen's connections to politics & how his efforts on alternative energy will play out with the current administration?

U.S. politics: Is the fix in?

Nov. 13 — “Today, we import a million barrels from Saddam Hussein,” George W. Bush said. “I would rather that a million come from our own hemisphere, our own country, as opposed to Saddam Hussein.”

THAT STATEMENT did not come in any context of a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq. Not did it come in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
George W. Bush, a former director of Harken Energy Corp., said that more than two years ago, in a presidential debate with Al Gore, when he was governor of oil-rich Texas.
It was more than a year and a half ago that the energy task force led by Vice President **** Cheney, former chief executive of Halliburton Energy Services, warned: “On our present course, America 20 years from now will import nearly two of every three barrels of oil — a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have America’s interests at heart.”

snip

These measures would certainly ratchet up domestic oil production — even the task force’s critics concede that. But it also misses the point, they say.
The United States wouldn’t be so thirsty for domestic oil, advocates of renewable and alternative energy sources contend, if it weren’t so dependent on oil in the first place.
“We can talk very simply in terms of ‘Gosh, you know, our supplies may one day be threatened; therefore, we should just drill more,’” said Michael Marvin, president of the Business Council on Sustainable Energy, a coalition of renewable energy companies and trade associations. “Well, that’s one of the options, and the other option is we could use less, and another is we could use something else.”
Said Randy Udall, director of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency, which pushes energy efficiency and renewable resources: “I saw a wonderful bumper sticker at a drilling rig a couple of months ago. It said, ‘Earth first — we’ll drill the other planets later.’ And that in my mind really symbolizes the bankruptcy of U.S. energy policy.”
Had the United States committed itself years ago to make national priorities of conservation and alternative technologies — such as fuel cells, wind, hydropower, solar and biomass technologies — it could be well on the way to weaning itself from crude oil, regardless of its source, Udall and other energy experts contend.


-dave




Casey
11-13-2002, 06:08 PM
What is allowed:

Discussion of topics such as alternative power sources, electric transportation, magnetic levitation, science and technology news, NASA programs, etc.

What isn't:

Topics relating to Politics, Religion, Sex, and Sports. Topic relevance is at moderator's discretion.
Previous Topic Topic