I was reading a column today about the U.S. now having the world’s largest amount of petroleum, and it occurred to me there must be a better solution than war and terrorism over oil! Here is what I wrote:
Interestingly, the thirty percent solar credit is starting to make a headway. To begin with, some of our electricity comes from oil, so solar will alleviate that.
It is the other two contributions, one in the near future the second within a generation that will end oil and coal.
We are starting to go electric for transit, and as time goes on this trend will continue until most people travel by electric vehicle. The last holdout in America is electrification of our rails. This obviously means less consumption.
However it is the final step that is the death to petroleum and coal: instead of burning fuel and decreasing the amount, we will actually begin the reverse: making petroleum out of thin air!
All we need are carbon dioxide, water vapor, and electricity from wave or tide or solar or geothermal, and we can simulate photosynthesis. We can create butane, propane, octane, fructose, or any other fuel as needed. And solar and wind continue to drop so rapidly they will be viable at present projections even without the federal credit.
This is not hard to do, in fact, we are already doing some of that with rechargeable batteries. And fuel cells are merely replacing lead, among the heaviest of metals, with hydrogen, the lightest.
And best of all, residential and commercial solar means Americans are not dependent on the grid. This makes us safer from terrorist attack on our nation's electricity.