Americans for Energy Independence

[pstans]

Check out this website that I heard advertised on Air American Radio tonight...http://www.ei2025.org/

The site is Americans for Energy Independence with a goal of being energy independent from the foreign oil by 2025. There is a petition to sign and other information.

[shoelace414]

1. Foregin oil isn't the problem

Oil is. Why would I trust a US corporation to not shaft me for oil (ala Enron)

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Oil per se is the problem

Check out Kenneth Deffeyes and David Goodstein on Amazon (Kunstler is "in" with some DUers - but I'm a Lovins-Ovshinsky optimist, not a Kunstler pessimist).

Also, check out the Peak Oil Group and the Environment and Energy forum - both on DU.

[pstans]

4. US Corporations don't have any oil

which is why we have to get it from wackos like Saudi Arabia.

The point is that we must conserve energy, live more locally, sell the SUV, get a bike, plant a garden, and support renewable energy like Solar, Wind, biomass, geothermal.

[cornfedyank]

5. how does one live locally in a global economy?

Don't be greedy.

[nankerphelge]

2. Drive hybrids

Get rid of your SUVs.

[OneBlueSky]

6. "an Energy Independent America within 20 years" . . .

just think if we'd started toward this goal 20 years ago . . .

is it do-able? . . . in 1961, JFK said he wanted us to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely by the end of the decade . . . and we did . . . and this was in the days when the computers were like abaci . . .

(or is it abacuses?) . . .

[Coastie for Truth]

7. Is it doable?

I was in the EV industry at an alternative energy "venture capital fund -think tank-incubator" for much of the 1980's.

And when looks at just how batteries evolved with the commercialization of laptop computers and cell phones and electronic "toys" (from the Walkman to MP3 players and digital cameras) - we went from carbon zinc and Ni-Cd to all variety of new battery chemistries, (like Ni-MH and Li-Ion) and capabilities (measured in number of charge/discharge cycles, and watts/unit weight and watts/unit volume).

And industrial electrochemistry (the generic field in which batteries are subsumed) - in my professional career we went from mercury electrodes and graphite electrodes to ceramic titanium suboxide-ruthenium suboxide semiconducting thin films on titanium substrates.

And look at "microprocessors" - I bought my first PC in 1984 - $3600 (8088 processor, monochrome monitor, 640 K of memory, no hard drive. I just bought a new PC last month - under $1200 for a system (811.11g, 2 Gig processor, 1 Gig on the board, 250 Gig hard drive, LCD display, combined fax/scanner/copier/printer - from an established company).

Digital cameras - with 7 meg CCDs for under $300 - that's better then Kodachrome or Panatomic X -- and cheaper then an entry level 35mm SLR. Moore's Law reigns supreme.

Automotive technology has not kept up with other fields.

An energy independent America in 20 years -- doable (ONLY with new management at DOE and DOT and the Big Three)

[pstans]

8. Here is another website that is similar

http://www.apolloalliance.org/

The Apollo Alliance aims to create three million good jobs, free ourselves from imported oil, and clean up the environment.

[Viking12]

9. The problem w/ framing as "energy independence"

is that "independence" risks becoming prioritized to the exclusion of other considerations. Within an independence paradigm 'homegrown' coal becomes very attractive, environment be damned.

The frame needs to be "sustainability" not "independence".

[pstans]

10. Interesting point

However, I think we are too far along on Peak Oil curve to give us much of a choice. The leading geologists say Peak Oil is going to hit somewhere between 2005-2010. Unfortanately, we won't know when it hits until a couple years after or until some massive disaster.

[thegreatwildebeest]

11. Actually, thats what energy "independence"...

...is now for the DOE. Heavy investment in "clean" coal technologies, increased funding into keeping natural gas and oil fields alive (investment into stripper wells, microhole drilling, etc) as well as a look into reviving nuclear energy, and a handful of bones for renewable energy in specific applications. But little in the way of confronting seriousserious investment in renewable energies really ( the billion dollars in funding for the office of energy efficiency and renewables is basically split up between about a dozen or so different sectors).