Rob Perks's Blog
Answering “All of the Above” Earns a Failing Grade on Energy Solutions
September 11, 2008
Posted by Rob Perks in Moving Beyond Oil
Answering “All of the Above” was rarely a good idea during multiple choice tests back in school. It always felt like that choice was meant to trip you up. These days it seems that some in Congress are using the same tactic to trick the American people into choosing to support bad energy policy. Here’s how it works:
Rising gas prices over the past few months have put a pinch in our wallets. Since our transportation system runs on oil, consumers find themselves stuck. While it’s probably the case that the days of cheap gas are gone for good, people are demanding relief at the pump.
Republicans in Congress are offering a rather simplistic – and fundamentally false – “solution” to a rather complex energy problem. Let’s just drill for more oil!
Never mind that America has only 3% of the world’s oil supplies and we use roughly 25% of all oil. Even oilman T. Boone Pickens knows that we could never drill our way to energy independence. Yet “drill, baby, drill!” is what many politicians are recklessly clamoring for.
So in the face of these facts, the drilling proponents in Congress are pushing an energy plan that hinges on drilling everywhere possible – particularly off our coasts and in protected wilderness. Yet this scheme is packaged as a smattering of several energy production policies, mostly “dirty” energy like liquid coal, oil shale and nuclear power mixed with a little dash of clean energy like renewables and efficiency.
They call this: “All of the Above.”
As our new ad reveals, “All of the Above” is all hat, no cattle. This scheme is really about subsidizing fossil fuels and extending our nation’s dangerous addiction to oil. These dirty energy measures would come at the expense of the clean energy that is needed – NOW – to power America.
The real solutions(PDF) to our country’s energy crisis can better be summed up this way: Clean. Energy. Relief.
Visit our website to find out more about how “All of the Above” is the wrong answer.
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Comments
jessica trent — Sep 11 2008 01:50 PM
outstanding post! why do logic and politics often seem to mix as badly as oil and water? keep up the good work!
Kirsten — Sep 11 2008 06:34 PM
Good post, and very true. But wanted to let you know that when I clicked on the image of the add so I could read the whole thing, I got an error message.
Dan Troutman — Sep 17 2008 11:38 AM
What a joke!
Wind and solar power are not 24/7/365 reliable.
I don't have time to go into details, but your bottom picture is flawed - in order to replace the dirty energy depicted on the top half, you'd have to PAVE over the flowers in the meadow with solar cells. Given the low efficiency of solar cells, the bottom pic should be a BLACK RIBBON of silicon stretching as far as the eye can see. No flowers or wildlife anywhere to be seen!
Are Americans willing to live with 100,000-300,000 wind turbines and millions of acres of black silicon solar cells? I can already hear the whining and lawsuits... again.