America’s Foreign Oil Dependence

2011-03-19

We all know oil to be a major factor and necessity in our everyday lives. What would we do without oil? Currently, our main issue is our dependency on foreign oil. The U.S. is either willingly or unknowingly (which is hard to believe) in the process of transferring our wealth to foreign nations. Imagine the benefits Americans would gain if we were to retain the money we send overseas for oil? Last year alone we spent over $318 Billion on foreign oil. There are several ideas in regards to replacing foreign oil. For example, drilling at home; but do we have enough to replace all of our oil imports; or do we even have enough to simply replace us from OPEC’s control:

Today with all of our technological advancements and with oil undoubtedly harming our environment, we need to understand that renewable energy is available to us and it is also a clean energy source that we need to take full advantage of. Unfortunately, we will never solve our national dilemma if we continue to throw hundreds of billions of dollars to countries for a natural resource we in part have, but also, have an alternative to replace shout we choose. Could countries even be questioning our intelligence due to the fact that we have the means to access natural resources, but choose not to and instead throw ourselves into financial ruin? What does that say about the United States?

Everyone tends to say that Renewable Clean Green Energy (ie; Solar, Wind, etc…) is too expensive for the average consumer to take advantage of. To a small degree they’re right, but if you remember, the flat-panel television was also expensive and yet we all seem to have at least one in our household. Renewable energy is unlike that of oil and other commodities in terms of its supply and demand mechanics. Since the supply can never be depleted (hence the word renewable)… the greater the demand the cheaper the price (like the flat-panel). We just have to want an alternative to oil. Or even easier, foreign oil. And the alternative should be renewable and clean.

By Ron Greene