Oil habits, die hard: Kickin the ol' Texas Tea

Dredging up old news... President Bush in his recent State of the Union address, asked all Americans to take on the challenge of kicking the habit on the dependence of foreign oil. Easy enough right? Bush meanwhile promises to be substantially free from foreign oil by 2025 and in addition to increasing funding for more research into renewable energy sources and bio-fuels.

So how simple is all this really? The Energy Information Association presents statistics from 2004 that renewable sources only make up 6% of the United State's Energy output. On top of this fossil fuels make up a 86% of the energy production with natural gas and oil combining for 60% of the total energy production and 73% of the fossil fuels. But why now? Why not a long time ago? The rise in oil prices since just 2002 would be enough to warrant a substantial increase in renewable resources. Statistics illustrate that the dependence on oil and gas has stayed the same or risen somewhat since 2000. Renewable energy has also hovered around 6% in those years suggesting that funding was never granted or kicked in. It took 6 years to realize this?

And how can we kick the oil habit considering the common person doesn't know how (from Gibson Consulting):

MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION:
I want to buy my gas from companies that don't import from the Middle East. Which ones are they?
Answer: There are essentially NO major-brand retail gas stations whose product derives from US sources only, and basically all of them have Middle East oil as a significant proportion of their source crude - because if refineries used only American oil, they would be incapable of making the volumes that we demand - a 60% shortfall. A few small regional refiner-producers may use MOSTLY American oil, but even they likely use purchased oil - with imported origins - to produce the volumes of gasoline that are demanded by the American public. In addition to all the crude imported, the U must import about 66 million gallons of refined gasoline because our refineries can't make enough

How dependent are we on OPEC and Middle Eastern Oil? The very share of OPEC countries of oil production outnumbers the total production of non-OPEC nations by almost 4X's with OPEC accounting for 78% of the world's oil RESERVES. In 2004, during the height of the oil price rise, the United States imported a total of 5,700 thousand barrels a day from just OPEC nations. Another 7,444 thousand barrels from non-OPEC nations. Considering that most of the OPEC nations are Middle Eastern, it becomes equally important that United State foreign policy aligns itself as friendly with these nations - it just obviously goes hand-in-hand.

David Sandalow of the the Brookings Institution puts the entire situation best. He states that oil could go to $100 a barrel WORLDWIDE pending on relations with Iran which is the second largest exporter of OPEC oil... with the current state of affairs, it seems like this could happen any day. This also includes Venezuela... Hugo Chavez and Bush aren't exactly amigos.

United States dependence on foreign oil is no doubt a scary thing... but it is also not an easy habit to kick. After the rejection of the Kyoto Pact it is hard to even take the adminstration seriously about switching to renewable resources. Why not sign the pact, and demonstrate a willingness to cut back on fossil-fuel consumption which correlates with clean air and carbon dioxide production. Also this forces the public eye and the world community to make sure you comply with the pact and thus make sure the government spend their time fulfilling the pact. For Bush, the oil-man from Texas that he is.... signing the Kyoto pact and taking on renewable energy sources... just seems all too contradictory for the cowboy.

Its a wonder why the government hasn't taken a clue from California.

As simply stated as it was, it is a heavy task to follow.