Energy Crisis: America at a Crossroads
July 25th, 2008 | by Tom Harper |This isn’t our first energy crisis. The first one was during the winter of 1973-74, and there’ve been a few since then. But this one seems more permanent than the others.
Along with skyrocketing gas prices, we’ve got record high food prices, a housing crisis and a credit crisis. Everything seems to be coming to a head.
Past energy crises seemed to be part of a cycle. Everyone just waited for gas prices to go back down so they could rush out and buy an even bigger SUV; and everything would be “normal” again. I don’t see that happening this time.
Whatever is causing this fuel crisis — oil companies creating a fake “shortage,” treehuggers wrecking the economy by preventing drilling in wildlife sanctuaries — it’s here to stay. Even if we start a massive drilling frenzy yesterday, it’ll take at least five years (probably a lot longer) for this to affect the oil supply. Maybe we could spend that time expanding the solar/wind/ocean sources we’re already using. And just to be non-partisan, I think the Democrats’ plan for releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is every bit as shortsighted and boneheaded as the mass drilling spasm that Republicans want. We need to go through that unbearable excruciating withdrawal process NOW, and not keep begging the pusher for just one more fix.
We’re in for a rough several years no matter what we do, so we might as well seek a real solution instead of another band-aid. It’s time to start making some permanent changes that we should’ve made 35 years ago.
As much as gas prices suck, there are already a few silver linings. People are doing less driving and they’re starting to own fewer cars per family. Traffic deaths have decreased in the past few weeks because of our reduced driving. Mass transit, bike-riding and carpooling are up; driving by yourself to work is down. If these changes become permanent, urban sprawl will decrease (this won’t happen overnight) since it’s no longer lucrative to live out in the sticks and commute to your job 80 miles away.
People are doing more of their shopping locally. They’re actually patronizing their own rinky dink downtown mom-and-pop stores instead of driving twenty miles to the mall. A lot of tourist industries are doing fine. They’re getting more visitors from neighboring towns and fewer people who’ve driven or flown across the country; it all evens out. Last week’s annual Lavender Festival (it’s not what you think) in Sequim, WA had a record number of visitors. Local officials think it was at least partially because of high gas prices.
There have been all kinds of small but positive changes like this. Among other things: There have actually been reports of police officers getting out of their squad cars and — better sit down for this — walking their beat instead of driving.
Maybe, just maybe, these changes could become permanent. And maybe the banking/credit collapse will cause people to spend their money more carefully — differentiate between needs and “wants” and spend accordingly. (Go ahead, ask me what I’ve been smoking.)
Everyone laughs at Al Gore’s 10-year plan for getting off the oil grid. It probably isn’t attainable in ten years but it’s something we need to strive for. Since we’re already using solar energy, windmills and kinetic power from the oceans — not to mention methane and recycled waste — how far-fetched is it to just expand what we’re already doing?
T. Boone Pickens, the infamous corporate raider from the 1980s (and probably the inspiration for Gordon Gekko), is setting up the country’s largest wind farm in Texas. Has he turned into some sort of pot-smoking nature boy in his old age, or has he recognized another lucrative investment? I suspect the latter.
16 Responses to “Energy Crisis: America at a Crossroads”
By steve on Jul 25, 2008 | Reply
Oil will be under 100 bucks a barrel by the fall. Bookmark this to see that I am right.
By Craig R. Harmon on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
I have no bone to pick with cops walking a beat, in fact I think good things come of it, but every step they take away from their patrol car is a few moments longer to respond to a call elsewhere. Just saying that there are real life consequences to every choice one makes.
By grascarp on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
re: America at a crossroads”
The last person at a crossroads I heard of was waiting to make a DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.
The lure of gasoline and all the energy in those melted dinosaurs has held our country’s attention since before the last century. Today’s auto is just yesterday’s auto in a different package. And, truth be told, Americans ain’t going to stop using fossil fuels until someone invents a new source of energy or every last drop of oil is burned.
We need the geniuses to solve this personal transport/climate crisis problem with some amazing new powerplant. That new powerplant could give us time to re-educate the population, re-structure our mass transit systems, re-design cities and surburbia and give us time to begin lowering the millions of barrels of oil we currently need to move our asses and keep our home comfortable every day. Everything will have to change if we decide to permanently reduce our need for imported petroleum. Myself I like the way you just depress your big toe and instantly two-tons of steel living room launches into the fast lane. I’d pay anything not to be riding a ten-speed to work and back in the Florida heat.
By Craig R. Harmon on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
Yeh, but Robert Johnson could sure play the blues on that there guitar, devil or no!
By Tom Harper on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
Speaking of Crossroads (the movie), does anybody know who was playing those guitar licks when Ralph Maccio and Steve Vai were having that guitar duel? That couldn’t have been Ralph Maccio actually playing those solos. If he can play like that, he could have been much more famous as a guitarist than an actor. Those were some wicked riffs; sounded more like Steve Howe or Yngwie Malmsteen.
I’ve tried doing web searches to see who was actually playing those guitar parts but I couldn’t find out anything.
By Craig R. Harmon on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
Ry Cooder played Maccio’s part if I’m not mistaken.
By Craig R. Harmon on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
Check out Wikipedia’s article on the movie.
By Craig R. Harmon on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
From Wiki’s article on Ry Cooder:
By the way, Malmsteen? I’ve never heard him play slide before. Not that I’m the world’s greatest Yngwie fan, it just seems weird to associate Yngwie with slide guitar work.
By steve on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
I showed that film back in 1997 when I was a substitute teacher. I ended up having to give an impromptu blues lesson on my guitar the day after because some of the kids wanted to know some blues progressions… I totally sucked back then but to them I was a “God”.
By rube cretin on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
“This isn’t our first energy crisis.” No, but it may be the last. Google “Peak Oil.”
Reminds me of the the lyrics to Molly Hatchets song “Flirtin’ With Disaster”.
“..I’m travelin’ down the road and I’m flirtin’ with disaster
I’ve got the peddle to the floor and my life is runnin’ faster
I’m outa money - outa hope and it looks like self-destruction
How much more can we take we’ve all earned this corruption..
We’re flirtin’ with disaster damn sure know what I mean…
The way we run our lives it makes no sense to me..
By Tom Harper on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
Craig: Thanks for the links. I don’t know why I didn’t find that before when I was searching.
I saw the movie a long time ago, but I remembered Ralph Maccio’s guitar riffs (later in the guitar duel, when he plugged in) as being more like baroque-metal, like Malmsteen or Howe. I’ll have to look for a YouTube of that guitar duel; that was some dynamite playing.
By Craig R. Harmon on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
Well, the final riff, the one that finished Stevie Vai’s character, WAS taken from a Mozart piece he played for the class at the beginning of the show, so it definitely was classical but taken as a whole, Macchio’s part included lots of slide work.
Plus, Yngwie would have played the thing at like 250 mph.
By Craig R. Harmon on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
Stevie Vai’s character snapping the high e string and admitting defeat was just, well, damn fine acting. And I imagine it was acting. I can’t imagine Vai having his head cut in real life.
By rube cretin on Jul 26, 2008 | Reply
“Cornucopia … isn’t that the capital of the State of Denial?” greenman
“denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run the denying person knows the truth on some level, and it causes a constant low grade anxiety.” gavin de becker
By Liberal Jarhead on Jul 28, 2008 | Reply
We saw an interview with Pickens on TV last night on that new Planet Green channel; the reporter asked whether he wasn’t really doing this to make money, and he laughed and said, basically, OF COURSE he expects to make money, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t also good for the country, the economy, and the environment.
Pickens’ proposed plan is to carry out a crash program (bad choice of word?) to switch our cars from running on gasoline to natural gas, while we switch our electrical generation network from natural gas to wind. Of course, since he’s one of the biggest holders of natural gas stocks in addition to building the country’s biggest wind farm, he’d benefit twice. But why should he be penalized for being foresighted?
His point is that it would keep $800 billion a year in the country that we are currently spending on foreign oil. That would not only reduce our dependency on nasty countries like Saudi Arabia, it would do wonders for our balance of trade, and we might even be able to start buying back some of the IOUs the Chinese are holding so that they couldn’t crash our economy anytime they wanted by saying “pay up, please.”
Sounds good, and if Pickens makes some more money, good for him. Nothing wrong with that. If we want to join in, we can always invest in wind and natural gas ourselves. Beyond getting a better return on our investment than a savings account, we’d be speeding up this change that will be good for everyone except the petroleum multinationals and OPEC.
By rube cretin on Jul 28, 2008 | Reply
“One can only see what one is looking at clearly when one doesn’t care what one sees.“ buddist saying