Free Republic

Let’s reverse our dangerous dependency on foreign energy sources, and in-so-doing reduce the unnecessary expenditure in blood and treasure Energy – especially availability and most especially foreign oil dependency – is a huge national concern. In the aggregate, energy is perhaps the greatest of all concerns related to American national security. If we look at foreign oil dependency alone, we see that the U.S. spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year on energy imports, with much of this energy imported from Middle Eastern nations. Since there is no way to adequately determine – much less direct or demand –...

This is a video of a panel discussion at the Herzliya Conference in Israel which informed that the US can be oil energy independent in 10 years. Really fascinating.

Israel’s Friends with Benefits By Norma Zager “See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore He would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them.” Deuteronomy 1:8 (New International Version) If the Lord closed the deal thousands of years ago, why is Israel still looking for a cosigner? Israel must survive but American Jews are “over it.” AIPAC sold out for a glass of lemonade in the Oval Office and J Street is as pro-Israel as David Duke. It is time to wake up...

Energy: With Ahab-like determination, environmentalists have once again blocked oil exploration in the American Arctic. They may just have succeeded in putting the American economy on ice.On Friday, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals Court panel in Washington, D.C., struck down the Bush administration's five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing off Alaska's northern coast. The plan was vacated, the panel ruled, because of allegedly insufficient environmental review because its "environmental sensitivity rankings are irrational." What is irrational is that despite a more than three-decade long record of environmental sensitivity at Prudhoe Bay and elsewhere, and despite booming polar...

A top expert tells Congress that oil will be around for a long time and high inventories and low prices are no excuse not to find more. Oil shock? How about a no-oil shock? Be careful what you wish for, goes the old proverb. Well, as we all had hoped, energy prices have fallen — but only as part of the global decline in economic activity. This has been used as an excuse to further discourage exploration for and development of domestic oil resources. But if the economy does recover, that policy could provoke another recession.

The Energy Department is planning to award $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of new nuclear power plants to four utilities, government sources said today. The companies include UniStar Nuclear Energy, NRG Energy Inc., Scana Corp. and Southern Co. Nuclear power advocates hope that the loan guarantees will help launch a new wave of nuclear power plants that use a new generation of technology; moreover, they note, nuclear plants do not emit greenhouse gases. But foes of nuclear power argue that the plants remain too expensive to build without federal assistance and that energy efficiency and renewable energy...

Dirty money: How petroleum pollutes the political environment by Bruce Watson Sep 9th 2008 @ 1:00PM Filed under: Polit-eco, Activism, Climate Change I'm going to start with a painful admission that will undoubtedly get me yanked off Greenpeace's Christmas card list. Okay, here goes... I don't care about polar bears, Prince William Sound, or even (to be totally honest) global warming. If you're still here, it means you've decided to give me a second before trotting off to poke pins in your 100% hemp Bruce Watson voodoo doll. Thanks. The simple truth of the matter is that polar bears are...

There is a growing consensus America must end its addiction to oil. Yet there is despair we can actually do so, short of draconian cuts in energy use that would leave Americans sweltering -- or shivering -- in the dark and trudging to work for miles on foot. Such defeatism is unworthy and unwarranted. America can end its addiction. Thanks to technology and the new economics of energy, the time is ripe to launch an energy revolution and shift toward ethanol as a major transportation fuel. Unlike exotic alternatives such as hydrogen, with ethanol we don't need new engines, or...

Most Americans view Africa as a region plagued by instability, poverty, and poor governance. Although accurate for portions of the continent, this picture is far from complete and fails to recog­nize the region’s growing importance to U.S. national security and economic interests. American interests in Africa range from traditional develop­ment and humanitarian problems to the more recent challenges posed by globalization and the opportunities for terrorists and other violent actors to exploit unstable countries. There is also a rising expectation by many in America and other coun­tries that the U.S. will intervene in internal and regional African conflicts more frequently...

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi recently said he expected the price of oil to remain at unconscionably high levels of between $40 and $50 per barrel through 2005. Ironically, every American should be grateful. Such gratitude is not, of course, due the Saudis — who, we are endlessly told, are among our most reliable "friends" in the Middle East — for working to drive down the price set by the OPEC oil racketeers. The Saudis seem content to keep prices exorbitantly high, though they are well aware of the adverse effect of such artificially inflated costs on the financial...