Saturday, February 18, 2006
"All the President's Tech Initiatives"
Interesting analysis of the tech initiatives outlined in Bush's State of the Union speech, particularly in reference to alternative energy development. And yes, I totally ripped off the headline from the story because I was unable to come up with anything more clever.
There's one thing that sticks in my craw that the politicians, Democrat or Republican, never bring up. The linked article doesn't mention it either. There's all this talk about our dependence on "Middle Eastern" oil and yet, only 24% of our oil imports comes from the Middle East, based on the 2005 YTD numbers here. While that's not insignificant, there's not nearly as much dependence on the Middle East for our oil as we've been led to believe. The proposed 75% reduction in Middle Eastern oil dependence looks pretty paltry once you realize it only amounts to an 18% reduction in our total oil imports.
Now don't get me wrong. Reducing our overall demand for imported oil while simultaneously developing clean, renewable energy technologies and cranking up our GDP is something I can certainly get on board with.
There's one thing that sticks in my craw that the politicians, Democrat or Republican, never bring up. The linked article doesn't mention it either. There's all this talk about our dependence on "Middle Eastern" oil and yet, only 24% of our oil imports comes from the Middle East, based on the 2005 YTD numbers here. While that's not insignificant, there's not nearly as much dependence on the Middle East for our oil as we've been led to believe. The proposed 75% reduction in Middle Eastern oil dependence looks pretty paltry once you realize it only amounts to an 18% reduction in our total oil imports.
Now don't get me wrong. Reducing our overall demand for imported oil while simultaneously developing clean, renewable energy technologies and cranking up our GDP is something I can certainly get on board with.
