Comments about ‘Letter: Nation should rely on U.S. resources, not foreign oil’

Burke, just one question... What's keeping those natural resources from not being sold elsewhere? An educated person like yourself must have checked what our #1 export is before writing this letter, right?

Perhaps you meant to say, we need to keep fuel mined and drilled here in America IN America rather than sell it off?

"Liberty is everyone's best freedom. If the president has the power to open or close drilling, so should the people."

Good point. America is supposed to be all about free choices. But energy isn't a free market and the people can't act on "their freedoms."

Oil, regardless of where it is drilled, is subject to global commodity prices, driven by the OPEC cartel that largely controls supply and price. Wars, economic crashes, hurricanes, all can trigger price fluctuations.

Electricity is a regulated monopoly market. No consumer freedom. Utilities are guaranteed a rate of return and can pass along higher prices to consumers. Coal or natural gas prices skyrocket? Coal gets a carbon tax? No problem. Simply pass costs onto trapped consumers.

America needs prise stable, domestic energy: Renewable energy. Wind power prices at Spanish Fork are "locked in" a 20 year contract. Who knows what the price of oil, coal, or gas will be in 2028? We know Spanish Fork's wind price.

Iowa gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind, helping to stablize energy prices in that state. Texas gets 8 percent from wind. Diversifying into domestic renewables is part of the solution.

Oil, gas and coal are commodities sold on international markets. Unless you are talking about nationalizing these industries, oil, coal and natural gas produced in Utah will be sold to the highest bidder with no guarantee they'll stay in the United States.

These sources of energy will be with us for a long time yet, but if you really want to improve America's energy outlook and give us a better future then get our military out of the Middle East and take those billions of dollars and invest them in clean, renewable energy and more energy efficient technologies here in the US.

Destroying our national parks in an effort to lower the price of a tank of gas by a dollar makes zero sense.

What's wrong with a tax on imported oil sufficient to pay for the military required to ensure the flow remains flowing?

Our nation is too dependent on oil from any source. The millions of dollars that America is spending on foreign oil purchases could very well be directed to opening up more research and development of alternative energy sources in the U.S.

Rape and pillage of our national parks and environment are not solutions.

"The government needs to stop relying on foreign oil and develop the opportunities we have here."

Well, if you believe that, you best start pushing alternative energies for driving cars.

I think that you overestimate the amount and economic viability of some of the sources you cite.

This letter should be "exhibit A" on the need to develop renewable energy resources. Compared to light sweet crude, tar sands, oil shale, and coal, are the bottom of the energy barrel. Not only do they provide low energy return on energy invested, but all three have huge carbon footprints. If you have any doubts, just google "Canadian Tar Sands" or "Estonian oil shale" and check out the environmental consequences of their development.

By all means, let's strip mine the coal out of our national parks. What a lovely solution. Let's turn all our kids into miners and breathe coal dust and drive the tourists away and lose the most beautiful landscapes on earth FOREVER. And when all the coal is gone and Utah's beauty is a wasteland, future generations will wonder at the insanity of their ancestors.

For the first time since the early 70's, U.S. is producing more oil than we import. Our demand is also down compared to ten years ago. So the price should be dropping, right? No, because demand in China, India, Brazil, etc. is growing by leaps and bounds. Unless we go into a global depression, this trend will continue, meaning prices will stay relatively high no matter how much we produce.

If America significantly increased the supply of domestic oil, it probably would have no effect on the price of oil or gasoline.

The world price of oil is controlled by a monopoly that would regulate the supply of world oil to suit it’s pricing needs. More production in America would simply be offset by a reduction in some other source.

If America could seal off and close all our boundaries and not allow foreign products to come in or American products to go out, we probably would have an effect on the price of gasoline.

However, the effect might be to raise the price of gasoline at the whims of the American oil monopoly.

@ Irony guy: You took the words right out of my mouth.

Roland Kayser

We are exporting more oil PRODUCTS than we are importing, but the U.S. still imports huge amounts of crude oil to generate those products. There has been an uptick in American oil production, but we are still far from the U.S. peak production year of 1971.

This letter makes me speechless.

The only thing right is America needing to eliminate our dependence on Foreign Oil.

1.Waste not – Want not. Regulate [ratin if need be, to reduce unnecessary consumption].
2.Nationalize and close the sale of U.S. oil and coal to the global Free and open market. [Can’t be sold to China, India, Europe, ect.]
3.Eliminate all subsidizing to Oil corporations
4.Sell gasoline at free and open prices ~ $6-$8 per gallon [not the deflated devalue rate due to Taxation and subsidizing]
5.Demilitarize our nuclear weapons, and use the material to build this nation - not scare, intimidate or destroy others.
6.Make Oil Companies take the treasures of the earth and buy up their own armies and navies to attack and protect with blood and horror their own Master Mahan business interests – leave America and it’s people out of their greedy business interests.

But then again – Conservatives and Republicans will never go for this. Because Liberals are trying to do it. And they tend to put party politics and party ideology ahead of what’s right for the rest of the county.

A new report by the Department of Energy claims the United States has enough existing renewable energy to supply 80% of the nation's electricity use by 2050. The #1, numero uno, U.S. product that we export is gasoline. Billions of taxpayer dollars are given to oil companies each year in subsidies and tax loopholes. Burke, do you really think prices are a byproduct of the free enterprise system? I don't and it's not. I have seen what has happened to the frozen tundra of Canada as a result of selling off natural resources. It's not pretty. Think people. Invest in affordable renewable resources. You can't sell everything. If we had followed up in the 70's there would be no wars in Iraq for oil and we would have been to 2050 already.

Burke, you can't run your car on coal. And the numbers just don't add up. We don't have enough petroleum resources to even come close to independence. And finally, as an article recently in these pages noted, let the free market decide. If someone wants to produce oil in the US and export it because the market and price are there, then so be it.

The letter writer is correct - we can and must reduce our energy imports - first from unstable sources, then from all sources, if possible.

Oil is used only for transportation and raw materials (plastics, asphalt, etc). Renewables (wind, solar, geothermal) are no help here - there are no electric planes, ships, freight locomotives, heavy trucks, etc. Electric cars are a dud in the US market. Biofuels require that we chop down more of our forests and use scarce irrigation water for growing fuel instead of food.

We need to build the Keystone XL pipeline and continue R&D in making petroleum fuels from American oil shale, oil sands, coal, natural gas, and harvested wood from forest thinning and beetle-kill salvage. Once we are energy independent, we will only need our armed forces to protect the imports of Chinese made solar panels and wind turbines and Japanese made electric cars, just so the libs can continue to feel good about themselves.

@ Hutterite - "Burke, you can't run your car on coal."

Diesel engines were created to run on powdered coal. You can also make liquid fuels from coal.