Written by Dan Watson
US energy policies and practices affect the ability of "We the People" to continue driving our diesel vehicles.
Shortly after World War II, the United States started to import oil in order to meet its growing demand for finished petro-chemical products. The rapid escalation of plastics used in packaging, domestic utensils, automobiles and virtually every aspect of American life added to the increasing demand for petroleum. Electric generating plants that run on diesel have been easy to construct as have steam plants supplied by petroleum. This has added to the ever-increasing demand curve for petroleum. Along the way, US domestic production has increased but it could not keep up with the rapid increase in demand. As a result, petroleum imports surged to ever higher levels. Electric generating plants began to shift to burning domestic coal and natural gas, however, the demand for petroleum has not slackened. Nuclear power plants came on line with great promise. Unfortunately, public hysteria cut short the promise of a nation powered by nuclear generated electricity. Modern clean coal fired generating plants began to replace old less efficient power plants with great promise to use the vast quantities of domestic coal reserves in the US. Again, this promising technology would fall to public hysteria: smaller in number than nuclear opponents, they compensated with fanatic hyping of man-made climate change, global warming.
