Reader comments
No quick fix for energy

This is illogical. Just like increased production, most of the conservation measures will take several years to implement, and most of them will not have significant impact individually.

We're not going to be driving electric cars tomorrow in sufficient numbers. Not next year or the year after either.

The key is numerous approaches to increased conservation and numerous approaches to increased production, and none of these will have significant impacts for the next couple of years. However, collectively, they will over time.

Didn't President Bush say that we're "addicted to oil"?... whatever happened to the famous Republican response to addiction of "Just say No!"? The reason conservation is more important than drilling for more supplies is that permanent conservation measures curb need for supplies into the future. Boosting supplies now without conservation simply sates short-term needs. Electrics and plug-in hybrids have been announced for 2010, so a medium term solution is coming, and Americans should be committed to procuring these vehicles! It is better for these cars to be sitting in our garages and charging up on locally produced electricity than having our children and grandchilding continuing to stand in the Mideast desert to "defend" our access to oil!

Inforce a 4 day work week for all employers of pulic and government workers. Shut down all retail on Sundays including sport activites. Stop busing children to school. End the war in Iraq. And the damn problem will be solved in 6 months.

Fix the markets for speculation. That is where the problem is. Get rid of the Enron laws!

Hey Deseret News editorial board: pandering to the green left won't win you credibility nor will it win you readership loyalty from an audience that loathes all things conservative. This editorial is an example of your paper being adrift of late. We cannot conserve our way out of the energy crisis, that is simply foolish thinking when consumption of energy for plasma tv's, rechargeable iPods and my new waverunners is increasing year after year. Conservation, at best, can only help slow the increase in demand a little. Rediscover who your audience is: energy consumers with large families who buy lots of electronics and motorized vehicles all of which demand more energy production. Stop pandering and start demanding more production.

There is nothing controversial about using more of the resources that God has blessed us with. The only controversy is our government�s unconstitutional establishment and the fanatical adherence to the false religion of man caused global warming. We must come to our senses now. When the war against Iran begins, no matter who starts it will make oil cost several hundred dollars a barrel. Drill here, drill now and pay less!!!

"meaningful conservations measures"?

The first step is admitting that you have a problem. As Dr. Bush recognized a couple years ago, we are addicted. Unhappily, he has spent the last 8 years defeating every attempt to lessen our dependence. Anonymous, you are so wrong about how quickly conservation works. Did anyone notice how quickly the penny dropped all over this great land when gasoline got to 4$ a gallon. Overnight, consumers changed. SUVs have become radioactive, and not in the good sense. Americans dropped their rate of driving more than at any other time sense such things started being measured, in the 1940's. And michaelh, your "drain America first, at any cost", is just like a meth head going out to score another hit rather than trying to kick.

The 300 lb. man is sitting in the doctor's office, having just finished a physical examination.

Sez the Doctor:

"Mr. Fatso, your arteries are horribly clogged. Your heart is in danger of failure. You've got do something, soon, or you're going to die."

Says Mr. Fatso:

"That's not all, Doc! I'm going broke buying all those Big Macs! I eat six for breakfast, eight for lunch, and ten for dinner! Have you seen how much they cost now - it's TWICE what I paid just a couple of years ago. I'm going broke!"

Says the Doc, having been recently inspired by President Bush:

That's terrible. I'm going to urge McDonalds to raise more beef in the hopes it'll lower the price on your Big Macs.

The reason 75 percent of Americans want the government to get out of the way and allow for unfettered access to our own petroleum is they can see the train wreck that's upon us. When liberals say it won't fix the problem immediately, the people say, the quicker the faster. When they say it won't bring down the price of oil, the people say flooding the market with any commodity has always brought the price crashing down (economics 101). Those who are informed know that environmentalists are living a dream at the moment and their rhetoric is profoundly unbelievable. Getting away from oil dependence is good, but all at once, it is economic suicide. There is no comfort in Al Gore buying carbon credits so he can enjoy his energy hog life style while millions loose their jobs and suffer to conserve. Just as it came out that Enron had manipulated energy costs, the people know that even now shenanigans are afoot with oil and they are unwilling to accept it.

As to electric cars. We don't have any extra electricity either.

We are in the beginning stages of the "Mother of all Downsizings". Our lives will be changing from what they are now to something resembling the the far lower energy consumption lives lived by others around the world, and people from our own past.
This isn't a matter of choice or ideology. It is the reality soon to be forced on us by the facts of geology and thermodynamics. We are losing the ability to feed our lifestyles the energy diet they require.

The energy problem is a bunch of garbage. Energy is as free as the air we breath. cars can run on water. You can even make a motor with permanent magnets - no electrical input. Patens have been issued for this stuff and some of them are easy to duplicate. I think this is the best one: WO9222123

I can't believe we have allowed ourselves into this mess. Don't expect the corporations or the government to save you, they won't. There is too much money and power in selling energy. We have to wake up and realize we being lied to. The solution to the energy problem will have to be a grass roots revolution.

Its funny, the desnews writes a well reasoned editorial about the best way forward and you chime in with the "stop telling us how it is and just pander to your core audience" line. I guess that is why you watch faux news.

The only way to put a real dent in oil prices is to nuke China and India, where virtually all the excess demand has been coming from recently. Absent increased supply, that causes the price to rise.

(And of course, since we now live in the Age of Asset Bubbles, every time any asset price starts rising -- be it tech stocks, real estate, or commodities -- the thundering speculative herds gallop in and jack the price up even further, based on nothing more substantive than an expectation that rising prices will continue to rise.)

I'm not opposed to offshore drilling, but it would cause the price of gas to decline by 1 or 2% in about 8-12 years.

As to how we can lower demand in a hurry:

If you drive 15,000 miles a year in a car that gets 20 mpg, you can cut out almost half your gas usage if you carpool to work and drive only 12,000 miles a year, and get a car that gets 30 mpg. Drive 60 mph and you will save even more. Carpooling and driving slower can be done immediately; replacing vehicles with higher mileage cars will take some time, but less than drilling off-shore or opening ANWR.

I know that not everyone can do this (the trucker driving the semi isn't going to carpool), but if rest of us do so the price of gas will come down for everyone. Not to mention unclogging the freeways.

Mr. Glaser, let me congratulate you for an actual, live, bonafide HELPFUL AND POSITIVE COMMENT! You rock, dude!

Mr. Glaser made some excellent suggestions. Unfortunately Millions of people aren't going to do the things a guy named Steve suggested on the Deseret News online comments last Tuesday. We need leaders to tell us the truth about our energy predicament and ask us to do these things as acts of patriotism and good citizenship. Like they did in WW2.
But no US politician is going to have the spine to do that unless there are crowds of Americans marching in the streets chanting "LESS, LESS, LESS!"

Conservation won't make a dent. If we don't explore, drill, develop, experiment, discover while we conserve, we are going to end up a third world country. China and India are doing all those things minus the conservation.

That is just the fact of life.