Energy independence is the new American revolution.
Energy independence not so inconceivable to Mad Money’s Jim Cramer
Just caught Jim Cramer on CNBC’s Street Signs talking about the run up in oil prices. According to Cramer, now is the time for America to act, claiming that America is “awash in oil and natural gas”. Ultimately, Cramer claimed that the US should utilize all of its oil and natural gas resources while moving towards electrification – a movement that will take decades to develop according to most experts.
Essentially, Cramer suggested that energy independence is actually conceivable and achievable far sooner than most Americans, or most in Washington, DC, seem to believe.
Obviously, much of this new oil and gas requires alternative horizontal drilling techniques that increase the possibility of ground water pollution, for example. Nevertheless, isn’t it worth investigating whether these pollution problems can be mitigated?
Additionally, while many worried about CO2 hate hearing the word ‘drill’, isn’t natural gas a much cleaner source of energy than foreign oil and domestic coal?
Local. Local. Local. This is one of the main mantras for the green movement, yet when it comes to the most important element of society – energy – local only matters if it’s solar or wind energy. How realistic is that?
Almost every bit of science available regarding energy demonstrates that plug-in vehicles will not be a major segment in auto sales for decades. Add in the legacy effect and add +20 years to these decades. That’s the basic conclusion of mountains of data. Truthfully, we should be focused on mild hybrid and full hybrids today, not plug-ins. These technologies are more mature and offer more bang for the buck.
Ultimately, don’t we need a realistic interim plan to the long term future of electrification? Isn’t it time to stop pretending that batteries offer some silver bullet to all of our problems? Electrification is almost certainly the future, or a critical piece of the future, but we have decades to live through before that future unfolds.
Isn’t it time to get serious about today? Shouldn’t we be using every resource available, such as turbo charging, start-stop, downsizing, alternative fuels, domestic oil, hybrids and plug-ins as part of a comprehensive plan to achieve energy independence as soon as possible, coupled with a movement to ever cleaner and greener energy?