If so, maybe we'd better get our hips into it.
Brazil breaks its dependence on foreign energy sources:
Three decades after the first oil shock rocked its economy, Brazil has nearly shaken its dependence on foreign oil. More vulnerable than even the United States when the 1973 Middle East oil embargo sent gas prices soaring, Brazil vowed to kick its import habit. Now the country that once relied on outsiders to supply 80% of its crude is projected to be self-sufficient within a few years.
Developing its own oil reserves was crucial to Brazil's long-term strategy. Its domestic petroleum production has increased sevenfold since 1980. But the Western Hemisphere's second-largest economy also has embraced renewable energy with a vengeance.
Today about 40% of all the fuel that Brazilians pump into their vehicles is ethanol, known here as alcohol, compared with about 3% in the United States. No other nation is using ethanol on such a vast scale. The change wasn't easy or cheap. But 30 years later, Brazil is reaping the return on its investment in energy security while the U.S. writes checks for $50-a-barrel foreign oil.
"Brazil showed it can be done, but it takes commitment and leadership," said Roland Hwang, vehicles policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. In the U.S. "we're paying the highest prices at the pump since 1981, and we are sending over $100 billion overseas a year to import oil instead of keeping that money in the United States.... Clearly Brazil has something to teach us."
Ya think?
Here's the deal. We're at war, in no small part--okay, completely--because our oil somehow ended up under a bunch of other people's land. Were we to make as concerted a push as the Brazilians we could be self-sufficient in energy, and in a lot less time than thirty years. Here's another bit of the story that for me says it all:
"If we would have spent one-hundredth of the money that we have spent to send tanks around the world to protect our oil supplies ... we would already be using cellulosic ethanol," said Michael Bryan, chief executive of BBI International, a Colorado-based bio-fuels consulting company.
Anything less than energy independence is un-American. The more dependent we are on foreign sources for anything let alone energy, the more vulnerable we are. Public policy that promotes a vulnerable America for the financial benefit of certain industries is just this side of treason. Read this article. And call your congress members.
Thanks to Baldwiny, who pointed to this piece in his Free Nude Liberals diary. :)