The Next Conservative Energy Policy

Peak oil will cause a crisis in transportation because there are no ready liquid fuel substitutes of comparable quality or quantity. We can’t fill gas tanks with coal, wind, solar or nuclear fuel. A February 2005 report commissioned by the Department of Energy, Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management, concluded that a crash program to produce liquid fuel alternatives at the maximum feasible rate must start twenty years before peak to avoid significant supply shortages.

Conservatives should recognize that unless we have a national energy conservation program with the commitment, breadth and intensity of the Apollo moon mission and the Manhattan Project to create the atom bomb, our country is unlikely to achieve the goal of replacing “more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025″ and even less likely to break our oil addiction.

[Although this article is a little old (27th February), I would like to publish it here now because I have admired what Roscoe Bartlett has done in the US Congress to raise the awareness of Peak Oil there during the last year. Note particularly readers comments at the end.]
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