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Originally Posted by bobfl
Most folks don't consider that wind and solar are really only supplementary energy sources. As a person that spent about 35 years messing about with sail boats I saw first hand how limited wind energy can be. Many sailing days ended up powering due to lack of wind. Solar has another problem, sun doesn't shine at night and on rainy overcast days. The question is what energy source will they supplement? There must be a steady energy source that runs 24/7. At this point in time Nuclear energy appears to be in the lead for this although interesting work is being done on others. How do we get through the period until alternate energy sources are ready to pick up the load? I agree that we can't drill our way completely out of this mess but I think we need to drill as much as possible to get us through the 10 to 20 year period needed to build the needed alternate energy infrastructure. We are on a knife edge between supply and demand, and any blow up in the middle east could spell disaster for our economy and our country.
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I agree with you in theory Bob, (we're sailboaters too), but what i'm afraid of , is the govt will get the okay for the drilling, then not do their job on taking the lead on developing alternative energy sources. I think a big part of what needs to happen is changing our culture to become smaller consumers of energy. Americans are totally different than Europeans in this respect. We drive huge SUV's, have huge houses with large energy demands, take 2 showers a day, the list is endless, and it appears the oil resources are not there to sustain those demands.