Senate Energy Bill Threatens U.S. Economic & National Security

BRIDGEPORT, CT, June 29, 2005 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- The energy bill that passed the U.S. Senate yesterday and the bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last April hasten the threat to America’s economic and national security. Both energy bills fail to provide a practical path for achievement of American energy independence according to CleanPeace, a non-profit advocacy group.

"When it comes to dependence on oil, more production means less oil. The more oil taken from the ground today, the less domestic oil left, the slower the rate of its extraction and the greater America’s dependence on imported oil and Middle East OPEC dictators" said Bill Garrett, Co-President of CleanPeace.

The world burns six barrels of oil for each one discovered and new oil discoveries tend to be increasingly difficult, expensive, and slow to extract while world prosperity and America’s national security demand increased supplies of inexpensive energy.

Congress’s new energy legislation focuses on subsidizing more rapid depletion of domestic oil, other fossil fuels and a proliferation of radioactive power plants. It fails to adequately provide resources, policies, and most important of all, a level playing field on which to exploit America’s abundant, but underdeveloped, undepletable energy including direct solar, wind, wave and biomass wastes.

"These energy resources are ultimately far more abundant than fossil and radioactive fuels. Every day the Earth receives more solar energy than all the fossil fuels ever deposited on the continents and the technology to exploit it is available now" said Roy McAlister, Co-President of CleanPeace and President of the American Hydrogen Association.

Accelerating depletion of America’s oil reserves puts America’s national security in peril and could make us subservient to the will of the OPEC dictators and the Middle East radicals who influence them.

The abundant energy available from domestic undepletable resources could begin replacing oil near term, when it’s needed, and rapidly develop into the primary fuel of America if allowed to compete on a level playing field with fossil and radioactive fuels. Hydrogen can be cleanly and efficiently burned in existing, ordinary gasoline and diesel engines and it can be made from most all undepletable resources including direct solar, wind, wave and biomass wastes. Via hydrogen, these undepletable resources can begin powering the transportation sector and, as infrastructure is built, can become the primary replacement fuel for oil, Said Garrett.

The need to replace oil is urgent. At best, America has less than 3% of world oil reserves, OPEC controls 61%. China and India aggressively compete with the U.S. for world oil reserves to power their rapid economic growth.

U.S. prosperity depends on consuming 26% of world oil production and America imports 60% of the 21 million barrels of oil we use each day. Depleting America’s comparatively meager U.S. reserves is enormously profitable for oil companies but very dangerous for U.S. economy and security.

"The energy message from Congress to the world should have been that America’s energy bill committed the nation to an emergency program on par with America’s best wartime efforts to achieve ENERGY INDEPENDENCE by rapid development of abundant wind, solar, wave, falling water, and biomass resources" said McAlister.

s The unburnished truth is that adequate reserves of inexpensive oil are an endangered species with no hope of regeneration.

The energy bill should have put OPEC’s oil markets clearly in the competitive sights of America’s independent energy scientists; inventors and entrepreneurs, the Thomas Edisons, the Wright brothers, and the Bill Gateses of the energy movement. It should have been a declaration of America’s energy independence backed by a policy that allows undepletable energy to compete with oil now on a level playing field.

Heavy oil and oil from shale rocks and sands won’t fill the oil gap. Strip mining, steaming or chemically coaxing oil out of rocks or sand can not match the gushing extraction rates of the cheap oil that powers the world now.

The radioactive fuels so heavily subsidized in Congress’s new energy bill are not an answer either. It would take over Two Thousand mammoth, one gigawatt nuclear plants to produce enough hydrogen to replace oil in the transportation sector alone. They’d be more like corner stores than remote power sources. Imagine the radio active wastes and the dirty bombs that could be produced from it, said Garrett.

Radioactive energy is not feasible without heavy government subsidies, insurance limitations, tax breaks, purchase guarantees, taxpayer supported waste storage and other government benefits. Oil would cost well over $5.00 a gallon without government subsidies, and tax breaks at that price undepletable energy could compete favorably with oil. Equal subsidies and tax benefits would make them competitive now.

Hydrogen burns clean emitting only water. Making it the primary replacement fuel for oil would clean the air and water, begin reversing global warming and lessen world tensions over competition for oil.

The International Energy Administration estimates the cost of providing adequate supplies of energy from fossil and radioactive fuels from now until 2030 at $3 Three Trillion. The cost of a complete hydrogen infrastructure is estimated at $600 Hundred billion.

The technology to make undepletable fuels competitive in oil markets is here, the abundant, undepletable domestic energy resources are here. All that’s missing is the will of Congress to create a level playing field for undepletable energy, said Garrett.

CleanPeace urges defeat of the energy bill unless it is amended to provide a level playing field between depletable and undepletable energy. America’s future depends on it.

About CleanPeace
CleanPeace, www.cleanpeace.org is a non-profit (C4) corporation dedicated to social action to rapidly replace depletable fossil and radioactive fuels with clean burning, Undepletable Hydrogen (Hydrogen produced from Undepletable Resources)

Contact:
Bill Garrett: 203-372-6166 Roy McAlister: 620-474-1156

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