The following was posted in an earlier thread. I was stuck by how the following two paragraphs define the real problem to me. Read on and see if you agree:

"Remember that in the early 70s your basic muscle car got under 10MPG. My 1990 Mustang 5.0L got 24MPG. Start using the technology that was described by International Semiconductor to use a combination of turbo-boost and electric motors in conjunction with smaller engine blocks and the efficiency can jump again." - Bozob

"In 1973 OPEC supplied something like 60% of world oil supplies. Now they supply 40%. Their importance in the world is slowly diminishing. It may take another 3 decades or so till their import is significantly less, but it will happen." - Bozob

In both paragraphs, the writer shows where we are our own worst enemy and OPEC is it's own worst enemy. We both are restrained by our own best interest. This is what makes Democracy so beautiful once we undersdtand it. Let's start with "us" and Bozob's first thought from above.

The fight to find better fuel economy has limited effectiveness when balanced against speed and comfort. Americans wnat to have the freedom to move about as we please in the greatest amount of comfort. This is only possible with unlimited energy. We want the have the comfort of a big car while we are constrained by its loss in fuel economy. Conversely, we want fuel economy to save our money but we demand a roomy vehicle with the ability to get from point A to point B quickly. We are caught between the rock and the hard place.

Where we get our energy is of little consequesnce to us...we just want it. At $2.00/gallon of gas, we open the door to all sorts of alternative fuel options. Gasohol would be fine except it relies on fossil fuels to produce the biomass. Thus, it becomes it's own worst enemy. Gasohol is caught betweeen the rock and the hard place.

If we had cheap electricity, we could generate hydrogen fuel...but cheap electricity comes from coal or nuclear fuels...not from fossil fuels. Wind is not cheap because the technology is too expensive and the windmills are ugly. The main advantage of both coal and nuclear is that both are highly powerful and require little space to make huge amounts of power efficiently and cost effectively. Unfortunately, the environmentalists hate nuclear because of the unknown. They hate coal because of the known. They have us caught between the rock and the hard place.

But what about OPEC? They are also caught. They know they have a depleting resource...they want as many dollars for each barrel as they can get. But, they know that they will open up the door to competition from other energy sources if they price their oil too high. America will tell them to "Kiss off," once we have the alternative sources in place. However, they also know that we must have genuinely competitive fuels based on the "real" value of oil. OPEC controls the "real" price of oil. They have caught themselves between the rock and the hard place. They are their own worst enemy.

If they raise the price, they lose...if they drop the price we buy too much of their oil too cheaply and put them out of business that much quicker. They are screwed in the long run and thay always have been in that same position.

30 years ago I was thinking about all this just the same as I do today. I could be wrong, but in 30 years I have not found any fault in my original logic. Everything that I have said above was just as obvious to me in 1976 as it is today. Not one damned thing has changed...NOTHING! We just delayed the obvious for 30 years.

Back in the late 1960's and into the early 1970's America was building nuclear power plants like crazy...we knew where we had to go. We knew our fossil fuel sources were limited. OPEC knew where we were going too. We were going to tell OPEC to "Kiss off." Nuclear power was clean, cheap and safe. We could use that cheap power to make cost effective fuels that were competitive with oil. We wee in a position to make OPEC meet our price on their oil. OPEC was caught between the rock and the hard place...they knew it and they rebelled. They cut our supplies and ran the price of our oil up before we were ready for it. We were forced to wait in long lines for our fuel. America protested and politics took over. OPEC knew us better than we knew ourselves.

The President was caught between the rock and the hard place...he had a difficult decision to make. He could tell us the truth or he could appease the Arabs to get oil flowing. He took the easy way out and appeased. Nuclear Plants were buried...we agreed to use their oil instead. To get our instant gratification, we sold nuclear power down the river. Instead of moving ahead into the hydrogen fuel era, we decided the path of least resistance ran through the Middle East.

As we turned against nuclear power, the oil flowed like water and the price came down. America was happy. But, what are we talking about today? We are starting to "talk" about geting back into nuclear in a big way. OPEC is rebelling again in the only way they can. They are trying to repeat 1974 and 1983...but will it work? Or will a strong President tell them to "Kiss off?"

Think about all this. If we tell them to kiss off, where will they go? Who has the dollars to buy the oil and refine it and burn it in their automobiles? Gas is already too expensive in Europe...in China the citizens have no money, no cars and no highways worth driving on. Only in America can OPEC sell their oil. They are caught between the rock and the hard place once again. This time we need to do the right thing. We need to tell them that we are going to continue building nuclear plants and we will make our own fuel from water. They can keep their filthy oil. What can they do with it?

See? We have them caught squarely between the rock and the hard place...we always have. This time I hope we have the right leadership. Terrorism plays right into the middle of this whole silly game. Remember 1972? Remember the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany? That was where the whole thing started. But, America was too interested in impeaching our President to get that concerned about some dead Jews in Germany. We were fighting a war in Vietnam and playing politics here at home. We thought that we were above the fray.

Two years later, we had gas lines, fuel shortages and runaway gas prices. We had experienced our first terrorist attack and never knew it. We were too busy standing in line to see what was going on. We just wanted more gaoline...at any price. Any price except more dollars for that gas. We paid the price...we sold nuclear down the river. We were caught between the rock and the hard place. Or, we thought we were.

We allowed our politicians to sell us a piece of goods which included more Arab oil...not less. We agreed to use even more oil and to kill our nuclear business. I watched it happen and never understood why it was happening. Today, it is obvious to me...or I could be completely wrong. But, someone needs to explain i to me logically so that it makes sense any other way.

Maybe the time was still not right for a strong, dynamic leader in 1976...we surely failed to elect one, didn't we? Carter was anxious to appease rather than to tell it like it was. And, to make matters worse, he was a nuclear engineeer. He, of all people, should have seen the future properly. Maybe he did. Maybe he was afraid that terrorists might get their hands on nuclear materials. Maybe he thought that killing nuclear was the right thing to do. Maybe it was the right thing to do at that time in our history. But, what we did was to delay the inevitable rather than to confront it.

Today we know that terrorists can get nuclear materials and they will use them against us. So, what did we gain in the last 30 years except a further reliance on OPEC? And, where did all that money go? Too much of it funds terrorism in my opinion. We are still right here between the rock and the hard place...the same hard place we were in in 1976! But now we aren't building nuclear plants...we are just talking about it.

I think we have wasted about 30 years of our time. Think where we could be right now if we had just continued building those nuclear plants that would be making very cheap electric power today. We would already be making hydrogen fuels and there would be no OPEC. Instead, we are thinking about all this. What do you think?

I think we need to tell the environmentalists to "Kiss off!" That is what we needed to do in 1976. They never had our best interest at heart...never.