Reader comments
'Energy independence' is a ludicrous myth

So I guess Mr. Bryce is recommending that we just throw up our hands, give up, and allow the oil companies to take care of us. This is pretty much the argument of someone with a lot of money to lose.

So-called energy independence doesn't come with a few simple solutions and a few years of minor discomfort. There are a lot of pieces that get you a percent here, two percent there, half a percent there. Over time, you can make a difference. It's easy for characters like Bryce to claim that a single piece doesn't do the job and then extend that to the whole effort.

It took a century for the U.S. to get itself in such a pickle, and it's going to take a very long time and a lot of work to get out. All the more reason to start now. There is no choice, unless you call hiding under the bed a choice.

To "So":

It doesn't appear to me that Mr. Bryce is doing anything like recommending that we do nothing. It seems that he is recommending that we operate with a better understanding of the true nature of challenge we face. That we not, for example, pursue dead ends (like cord-based ethanol) or suppose we can have any meaningful effect very soon...or very easily.

Whatever the truth is and however difficult it may be to determine, I'm always more interested in it than anything else.

Energy independence IS possible. Take nuclear, aboout 1% of uranium is usable in a reactor, unless a breeder reactor is used that turns U238 into plutonium. However we as a nation have chosen not to use this source. If we did, we could have enough electricity for all of our energy needs including for liquid fuels (making hydrodgen).

Well actually energy independence is possible. Sixty five percent of all petroleum is used to make transportation fuels. There can be no energy fix unless there is a transportation fix. We could well call this transportation independence. But how? First, let's have no more freeway (sic) route miles. Build many more miles of electric railways. Provide electricity for those railways using domestic coal and nuclear energy. A return to convetional coal-buring steam locmotives is also a possiblility. But wouldn't that despoil the environment? Keep in mind that in the meantime auto usage will literally be choked off with the cessation road construction. The environmental benefits of fewer cars will more that offset the pollution occasioned by steam locmototives.

Of course it would be best if all of this could be accomplished in a private market, but we've abandoned that long ago, so such must be done in the public arena. You'll likely disagree with me, but at least you might agree that transportation must be discussed in the same breath with energy use.

The editorial makes valid points that some of the hyped "solutions" just don't work. I'm especially glad each time I see someone point out the folly of biofuels. Americans, including and especially Congress, need much, much better education about energy issues.

Whatever transportation fuel solutions we try must be able to replace the diesel of big-rigs. That's the really difficult piece of the puzzle.