Well, living in texas, I know we could power this state from wind farms & solar, but that will never happen here for obvious reasons.  Anyway, this is interesting:

[url]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,50588,00.html[/url]

"Those who support drilling in ANWR say it could significantly reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil. But most independent experts who have done the mathematic calculations suggest that is not the case.

"Even at its best amount of oil, the Arctic Wildlife Refuge makes anything but a few tiny percentage points in the low, single digits of difference on a 56 percent dependency on foreign oil," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

The U.S. has 3 percent of the world's oil reserves — but uses 25 percent of the world's oil production. But Kerry pointed out that there are other places to which the U.S. can turn in order to put a lot of oil in the pipeline.

Oil companies are holding 8,000 leases today for deep-water exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. They haven't drilled in the Gulf of Mexico because they have waited for the price of oil to go up."

Well, as far as ANWR is concerned...I'm all for it.  I don't care if its only enough oil for a day its there and it should be drilled.

I've heard numbers in which ANWR will reduce our dependence ranging from environmentalists saying 3% to the people that are for it 10% to perhaps as much as 15%.


I forget the exact numbers but we get about 10% to 15% from the Middle East as it is so it could reduce our dependence with them slightly.  And that includes Iraq.


As far as wind and solar (and even water) are concerned, none of them are all that great.  Wind is environmentally damaging to flying animals (ie. birds) and you need a lot to get a good amount of energy.  And the most important factor to getting energy from wind is wind.  The hydroplants hurt the fish and the environment there.  And as far as solar goes...its only good half the day and I can't recall very well but I think solar energy even relies on gas a little.  Like it or not nuclear is the best choice, but if you listen to the envrionmentalists you'd think its worse than the plague.  So until the new reactor that reuses the waste that a researcher in Canada I believe becomes came up with is ok'd here we probably won't see a lot of plants pop up.


The thing that bothers me most about the whole oil thing in Alaska is it'll hurt the animals.  That is the biggest bunch of bull ever.  A lot of the animals are thriving, especially the caribou.  A few of the animals numbers, like the birds I think are going down but I don't believe that can be attributed to the drilling.
And the worst part is people are worried about a wasteland that nobody ever goes to except for research.


Anyhow, heres hoping somehow the Republicans get enough votes to keep the idea of drilling in ANWR alive.

Its about time to go Hydrogen!

There are three things we can do:

1. Drain Saudi Arabia first.  Buy their oil.  They then give our money to terrorists.

2. Stop buying cheap Saudi oil, and buy only US domestic oil.  Drill in the Arctic AND Gulf of Mexico.  Let us also drill off the coast of California, who uses 25% of US energy.  Also, drill off Florida, where many of those leases are, but the US govt and Florida will not allow drilling.  Yes, they eagerly accepted the money for those leases, but then would not let them be used.  

Be prepared to pay for it.

3. Do without oil (your car, your heat, etc), oil products (paint, plastics, etc), goods produced with oil (your food, anything trucked in to your local store).

I'm not even sure if it matters where it comes from.  Look at all the possible reserves that haven't been explored yet because the price of oil hasn't made it feasable to drill.

Oil has a universal value, almost like gold.  Sure, we might only use 10-15% of middle-east oil, but lets just say for a moment that we had no dependence on them (but still needed that 10-15% from some other country).  Now lets say Saddam hits the bong tommorrow night and dicides to start Kuwait on fire again.  Price of oil goes up, but does it affect us?  Japan soon realizes that their own 50% (don't quote me on this one) dependency on middle east oil is leaving them wanting and the demand pushes up price.  Soon other exporters are filling that demand to gain higher profit.  Shifting that supply shorts someone else, and the price goes up there as well, and on and on and on.  Actually, I don't think it happens in stages, the price should go to hell all at once.