Fade2Green.com - Simple Sustainability - Organic - Green Living

Without being too pessimistic, one has to wonder about our country’s energy future as we listen to our leaders make comments that indicate that they are either (a) intentionally misrepresenting facts in efforts to gain support for their initiatives, or (b) woefully uneducated about the most basic issues of energy policy.

The first basic concept that our leaders and we as a nation seem to keep missing is that energy sources and what we use them for are NOT interchangeable.  To set the record straight: we use oil primarily to transport ourselves, not to produce the electricity that runs our lights and air conditioners.  Conversely, we use gasoline (derived from oil) to fuel vehicles, not to produce electricity.  In other words, a discussion about oil is a totally different discussion than one about how we produce electricity.

The facts are extraordinarily clear here:  Only 1.6% of our domestic electricity is produced from oil.  The other 98.4% comes from hydro, nuclear, coal, and renewables – almost all of which are produced domestically in the United States.  Almost every watt of our electricity is produced from fuels and technologies that are not oil, let alone foreign oil, or even foreign fuels of any kind.  In other words, we are not dependent on either oil or foreign countries for our electricity.

Meanwhile, 44% of our oil goes for auto gasoline, 21% for diesel fuel, and 9% for jet fuel.  That means the vast majority of our oil use basically goes directly to fueling vehicles to transport us and our stuff.

Given the above, one might conclude that it would be misleading for a candidate to print flyers noting quotes about our need to reduce foreign oil dependency on a backdrop of wind turbine farm images, yet that is what we see.  However, we may have reached a new low when the following occurred in a live nationwide televised debate between the two major presidential candidates:

Moderator:  “Can we reduce our dependence on foreign oil and by how much in the first term, in four years?”

Candidate A:  “We can eliminate our dependence on foreign oil by building 45 new nuclear plants, right away.”

Candidate B:  “But understand, we only have three to four percent of the world’s oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world’s oil, which means that we can’t drill our way out of the problem.  That’s why I’ve focused on putting resources into solar, wind, biodiesel, geothermal.”

Both candidates not only imply, but directly state that they will reduce dependence upon foreign oil through the growth in electricity production.  Of the five strategies mentioned, the only one that is even relevant is the biodiesel reference.  Even more amazing was the fact that post-debate analysis failed to clarify or even comment on this issue.

Until we, as a nation, demand that our leadership understand the most basic concept that electricity production (whether from nuclear, clean coal, or solar etc.) will not reduce our dependency for foreign oil, we cannot have even a productive conversation, and will therefore continue to have a misguided energy policy.