U.S. needs substantial energy solutions

Back in the 1950s and 60s, a large clock in New York’s Times Square kept tabs on the potential nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Named the Doomsday Clock, it attempted to focus the minute hand on the nearness of a nuclear holocaust as both of the world’s nuclear-armed superpowers stumbled from one crisis to another. As the events of mid-October 1962 proved, such an unthinkable cataclysm came close to happening.

Today such an indicator of looming tragedy has been replaced by an economic version – the energy doomsday clock. Unlike its predecessor, however, the sense of concern that accompanied nuclear confrontation is not manifest in the energy crisis.

As global demand for oil and natural gas keeps growing at the rate of 2 percent to 3 percent a year, sources available to America’s rapidly expanding consumer sector are drying up. It comes at a time when new areas of global oil demand are popping up like never before.

Unquenchable needs

It’s not only the fact that since 1970 depletion has exceeded new discoveries by a two-to-one ratio, but previous global reserves are being snatched away from the private oil multinationals on which America’s unquenchable needs are dependent. With America’s huge consumer sector comprising the overwhelming percentage of gasoline used in the world today, either additional suppliers or reduced demand will provide the eventual answer to this energy standoff.

The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA)