McCain: Look at Alternative Energies

On Fox News, Senator John McCain (Arizona) said recent action by "Mr. Chavez" and by Iran's leaders make it clear that the United States will be vulnerable as long as it remains dependent on foreign energy. "We've got to get quickly on a track to energy independence from foreign oil and that means, among other things, going back to nuclear power," McCain said.

With all due respect to other conservative lawmakers calling for the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the benefits of realizing the amount of oil production in the region will not substanitally reduce oil imports from the Middle East. Even though the latest government study (1998 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)) shows there may be at least 11.6 billion barrels of oil in the region, only about 4.3 billion barrels or more are technically recoverable. Would oil companies choose to drill where the costs outweigh the amount of revenue generated? The federal government would have to subsidize to encourage companies to develop the area. This would mean adding more to federal deficits, and more debt to everyone else.

Nuclear energy provides 20% of the United States' electricity and is the number one source of emission-free electricity. Could it be considered to be a viable alternative? Latest advanced reactor designs and innovative safety features may help prove that new plants could be constructed without public concern.

Fusion energy? This is still under development. The latest news so far is that China is planning to build a full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device in Hefei, capital city of each China's Anhui Province. The EAST project is somewhat smaller than the international project ITER which involves Russia, Japan, the US, European Union, China, and the Republic of Korea. Other small experimental Tokamak devices have already been built in Russia, France, and Japan. None are in the United States. With nuclear fusion, the deuterium extracted from just one liter of sea water would produce a potential energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline.

Wind and solar power are in use, but only provide total US energy in the single digits. Geothermal energy also has potential.

Yahoo News - McCain: US Can't Be Held Hostage for Oil

AngolaPress - China to build world's first "artificial sun" experimental device

CBS News - A New Gust of Wind Projects in US

MSNBC - Is the Price of Power Getting You Down?