Green Energy: A Second Coming

The younger generation is taking part in finding workable solutions to the myriad problems related to the production, distribution and consumption of energy. Universities across the country are expanding and introducing a host of alternative- and renewable-energy programs and projects.

It seems rarer than ever these days that a majority of Americans can get together, rally round a common cause, hash out their differences, and forge a consensus in support of a durable and lasting approach to a pressing and vital public issue. Yet that is what is happening as a groundswell builds from the grass roots up with regard to U.S. energy policy and the prospect of developing biofuels as an alternative energy source.

Prior to the 9-11 attacks and Gulf War 2, the U.S. public hadn’t been hit so hard with the prospect of an energy crisis since the formation of OPEC and the first great oil price shock of the 1970s. They were suddenly forced to contemplate and reckon with all the explicit and indirect economic, political, social and environmental costs of dependence on imported fossil fuels, as well as the ways and means whereby the U.S. produces, distributes and consumes energy.

Energy policy and the development of cleaner, more efficient renewable alternative sources are once again at the forefront of the nation’s political, technological, economic and social agendas.

The amount of petroleum used for transportation in the U.S. has grown steadily since 1975, according to government statistics, increasing from 8.95 million barrels per day then to more than 13 million barrels per day at present. About 40 percent of that is imported from OPEC countries.

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