Looking for solutions

At The Corner Cliff May points to a WSJ article by Bud McFarlane (Reagan’s national security advisor) detailing steps we can take to bring some sanity to our energy policy (sorry- that last statement implies that the US actually has an energy policy).

I took notice of this section:

Introduce the use of lighter, stronger carbon composite materials, as Boeing is doing in the new 787 Dreamliner aircraft, into the production of cars and trucks. A Pentagon study a few years ago concluded that this step alone could reduce our oil imports by 48%.

If we can make airplanes out of lightweight composites, why NOT cars and trucks? I don’t know if it’s a question of what parts of an automobile could be made out of composites as opposed to steel- can the major body components like fenders and doors be composite, and will they give crash protection? Can the transmission case or the rear differential be encased in a housing built of lightweight composite materials, and still stand up to the stress and torque produced?

It seems to me that these big, heavy components- transfer cases, transmission housings, driveshafts, engine blocks- would be the ones to construct of new materials lighter than steel or cast iron.

These are components that don’t have an impact on a vehicle’s crashworthiness. In a crash, it is the chassis, frame, and body panels that absorb and dissipate energy. This is where you need strength and rigidity.

I hope US manufacturers are not avoiding this possible solution in order to protect certain industries.

We have the solutions to our energy problems staring us right in the face, but we won’t implement them. We’re all familiar with them and we know they’d work. Well, I guess I should be careful about the ‘we’ part, because there’s plenty of people who don’t see the solutions. Or rather, WON’T.  America’s energy security is held hostage to environmentalists and their lobbies and their friends in Congress and in the courts.

We should be drilling offshore and in the Arctic, but opponents sue in federal court or direct their bitches in Congress to vote against that. The notion of drilling in the area that became the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has been an issue since the 70s. 10 years ago Bill Clinton vetoed a bill that would have opened part of ANWR to oil exploration. The small section of the Refuge to be exploited was analogous to a one square yard plot in the corner of one end zone of a football field. About 2000 acres out of 19,049,236 acres. But no- we were deluged with talk of caribou and musk oxen and pristine landscapes to be preserved. But all those people wailing about the beauties of ANWR never knew the place even existed until someone said, ‘hey, there’s a crapload of crude oil up there’. THAT’s when they said they’d been concerned about ANWR all along and came out of their holes to fight the big bad meanie oil companies.  When Clinton vetoed the bill to open ANWR, we were told that it would take ten years to see the first barrel of oil, implying we would be wasting our time. Well here it is ten years later, and oil is at $123 a barrel. We sure could have used that ANWR crude.

We could be building nuclear power plants, but then the naysayers come out of the woodwork like so many cockroaches and cry about the spent fuel rods and the expense. I swear, we could have plentiful nuclear power today if not for Jane Fonda and The China Syndrome. 

We could set a national fuel standard and just have two or three blends which would streamline gasoline refining and bring more gas to market faster, but the greenies have successfully forced state legislatures to mandate all sorts of ’boutique’ blends. We could build more refineries, but nobody wants a refinery built near where they live. Either that, or the enviros find some obscure species of gnat or weed where the new refinery is to be built, and tie the permit process up for years by suing in court to force builders to produce an endless series of environmental impact statements.

 The green movement keeps yammering away about developing clean renewable energy resources- wind power, solar, ethanol. Well, developers tried to build an offshore wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard, but Ted Kennedy got that project killed because it ruined the seaward view from his mansion in Hyannis Port- ‘not in my backyard’, said Ted. For solar power to provide US energy needs, we’d need to cover an area the size of Massachusetts in solar panels. And now that the US Government has mandated that corn be turned into ethanol, the price of food worldwide is on a price spike, and poor people at the margins of society are going hungry.

Which leads me to what angers me most about Congress’ dereliction of duty, and it is this. Their wealth and power protects them from the consequences of the bad choices (or no choices at all) they inflict on us. Do you think Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) or Brad Pitt or Al Gore give a flying fuck how much a gallon of gasoline costs? Hell no! They’re millionaires! If gasoline cost $25 a gallon they wouldn’t bat an eye- they’d just fire up the Gulfstream or call the chauffered SUV and flit off to the next environmental symposium to expound on how important it is that we Americans wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

We need bread now, but we’re told what we really need ( we just aren’t smart enough to realize it, you see) is some magical future cake.

America’s energy independence is held hostage to environmentalists and their friends in Congress and the courts. Meanwhile energy prices skyrocket at home, and our foreign oil purchases subsidize the mohammedan societies that want to destroy us.

We’re headed for a very rude awakening.

 

 

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