The many different energy alternatives surface during spill

If some good is ever to emerge from the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill perhaps it will be something later noted as a point in time that the United States became serious about energy independence.

Who knows how President Obama’s call this week — certainly not his first exhortation on the matter and not to be confused with extortion, which dip stick GOP Congressman Joe Barton accused the president of in getting BP to establish a Gulf damage fund — will really change any minds. But practically everyone in this country, whether they are oil and gas lobbyists or Earth Mothers with cloth shopping bags, knows energy independence is something this nation must eventually pursue. The question is when will that pursuit turn really serious?

Some of the ideas I get for my musings come from news.google.com. It is the best news aggregator that I know of which presents a wide range of news and views from a wide range of sources. Today, I looked up “alternative energy” and found a number of interesting stories on the subject such as a press release about an effort to make a documentary and book about driving a hydrogen-powered ’72 Mustang cross-country.

Steve Schappert & Steve Melycher, a.k.a. “Steve Squared,” will drive the Mustang “with a hydrogen generator that produces hydrogen on demand that has tripled gas mileage in similar vehicles. They will be meeting with other Hydrogen experts along the way and asking them to share some knowledge to see if we can all figure out how to make a car run completely on water,” according to a “PRLog” press release.

The movie concept, says the release, would be something like “Introducing Al Gore to the Blues Brothers.”

Meanwhile, other alternatives such as biofuels face challenges at a time when American energy independence has become an outcry in the country. Myra P. Saefong of “MarketWatch” writes that biodiesel and ethanol face difficulties in the marketplace if the biofuels continue to lack tax incentives.

Yet, Aaron Levitt writes in “Investopedia” that the geothermal industry has gotten a boost from a new round of Department of Energy grants.

Claire Pool writes in the “über-business “The Deal,” Why Not Natural Gas?

Then articles I scanned today take on the subject of oil sands, solar energy, wind, you can just about name it and it’s being cussed and discussed. And in the words of that classy broad and ex-con Martha Stewart, “That’s a good thing.”

But talk is also cheap, unless you are high up in the government. What we need is Action, Jackson! No, not Action Jackson, the 1980s movie starring Carl Weathers, Vanity, Craig T. Nelson and Sharon Stone, but action, Jackson, as in “action, you all” or as we say it in Texas, “ya’ll.”

I honestly believe that the only way this country will achieve both energy independence and the balance needed in switching from a hydrocarbon-based economy is through a “Moon Landing” sort of program. I speak, of course, of the project John F. Kennedy pushed to have an American on the moon in less than 10 years. Will such a project be expensive? You betcha, as “Drill Baby Drill” master Sarah Palin would say. Does such a prospect threaten to turn the World’s economic equilibrium on it’s ear? Could be.

Nonetheless, we have all these forms of energy out there that can substantially decrease this country’s use of foreign oil, or oil drilled by foreign or multinational corporations that blow up and come oozing onto our shores.

Oil is never going away, at least in my lifetime. But there are so many alternatives to it, so many people who are willing to drive great distances in cars more than 30 years old powered by water just to show others that we don’t have to use so much of oil. Yes, it would eventually help the environment. But also, yes, it could keep this nation from having to fight wars with nations that don’t particularly like us but with whom we are dependent on for their Black Gold.