AFS Cinema
It's Time to End Oil Dependence
RECEIVED Tue., Aug. 16, 2005
Dear Editor,
The world dynamic is changing as far as oil prices go and there's a lot of factors coming into play that were not there in the past. In a period of time, oil production in Iraq will reach pre-1991 levels of 11 million barrels a day. This will have a significant effect on oil prices, but that's not a short-term solution. Everyone's trying to come out with "new technologies" like hydrogen and fuel cells. They're really not practical in vehicles, they might be for some other applications, but not for cars. We really don't need to spend any real money looking for new solutions, we have technology on hand right now that's incredibly cost-effective and it's a known technology, electric vehicles. We need to build clean, efficient power-generation facilities and simply go to electric cars. If we spent the money we are currently spending trying to discover new technologies on improvements on electric vehicles and engines and storage, we'd be self-sufficient in a far shorter time. If we started immediate construction on dozens of nuclear power plants we could end our dependence on oil for almost everything outside of agriculture, aviation, railroads, plastics, and chemical applications. Nuclear technology has come a long way since Three Mile Island. Chernobyl was simply a terrible design being tested far beyond its operating parameters. France generates almost 90% of its total electrical needs from nuclear power. There are safe ways to deal with waste, vitrification being the best. It's time to get going on something other than oil-based transportation, we have the technology in place now to do so. It's something to consider. It's definitely something doable with our resources.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
The world dynamic is changing as far as oil prices go and there's a lot of factors coming into play that were not there in the past. In a period of time, oil production in Iraq will reach pre-1991 levels of 11 million barrels a day. This will have a significant effect on oil prices, but that's not a short-term solution. Everyone's trying to come out with "new technologies" like hydrogen and fuel cells. They're really not practical in vehicles, they might be for some other applications, but not for cars. We really don't need to spend any real money looking for new solutions, we have technology on hand right now that's incredibly cost-effective and it's a known technology, electric vehicles. We need to build clean, efficient power-generation facilities and simply go to electric cars. If we spent the money we are currently spending trying to discover new technologies on improvements on electric vehicles and engines and storage, we'd be self-sufficient in a far shorter time. If we started immediate construction on dozens of nuclear power plants we could end our dependence on oil for almost everything outside of agriculture, aviation, railroads, plastics, and chemical applications. Nuclear technology has come a long way since Three Mile Island. Chernobyl was simply a terrible design being tested far beyond its operating parameters. France generates almost 90% of its total electrical needs from nuclear power. There are safe ways to deal with waste, vitrification being the best. It's time to get going on something other than oil-based transportation, we have the technology in place now to do so. It's something to consider. It's definitely something doable with our resources.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Carl Swanson