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Give me a TLT sandwich
By Ken Byler
It's working ... gas hit 4 bucks a gallon down at the corner convenience store. How do you get folks use to the idea of $5 a gallon gas? Easy ... make $4 a gallon look like a bargain just like $4 gas now makes $3 gas look like a bargain.
According to ABC's George Stephanopoulos, $4 a gallon gas is encouraging news. He said, "indications are ... prices may have peaked." Showing that he knows nearly as much about the gas crisis as a rooster knows about romance, Stephanopoulos went on to say, "so far high gas prices haven't hurt consumers."
Just west of New York City and Boston is the rest of the United States. Apparently TV commentators living in that area haven't got a clue about how their fellow citizens live.
The pressure's on for President Obama to "do something." Meeting the crisis head on ... the President is "doing something" that he does best. That's shucking and jiving the citizenry.
Ignoring trillions of barrels of oil in areas the government has placed off limits, President Obama said "with only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, we can't drill our way to lower gas prices" He stated, "we must jumpstart industries that create jobs and end our dependency on foreign oil."
The proposed $7 billion Canada to Texas Keystone pipeline would've created 40,000 jobs. But it was postponed because of "environmental concerns" by the Environmental Protection Agency.
A 1970 executive created the EPA. The need for U.S. oil independence prompted President Carter's executive order creating the Department of Energy. For the good of the populace the EPA and the DOE have been working together like sleeping pills and laxatives ever since.
Solar energy is great for growing cotton, corn and wheat. It's great for drying clothes. But there's 250 million cars, pickups and cargo vans on the road and none of them run on sunlight. If a million electric cars replaced gas-powered vehicles tomorrow that would mean only .04 percent less gas powered vehicles on the road.
The cost per megawatt of energy produced by solar or wind is $24. For oil and gas it's 25 cents. Coal is 44 cents. The cleanest is nuclear energy at $1.59 per megawatt.
The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan carries a crew of 6,000. Two nuclear fuel cells generate enough power to turn the ship's four props, desalinate enough seawater for 6,000 people to drink, bath and cook 18,000 meals every day. The cells will last for decades. If the USS Ronald Reagan depended on diesel, a gallon of it would move the carrier less than 6 inches.
A single nuclear reactor provides 30 percent of New York City's electricity.
The DOE has approved several nuclear power projects. But no new licenses have been issued. The last nuclear power plant licensed was Diablo Canyon in California in 1979 and the last oil refinery was built 38 years ago.
Meanwhile, like exorcists throwing holy water on demons, the EPA is in a frenzy to shutdown 20 percent of the country's coal-fired power plants.
Showing a real empathy for folks that have to think twice about taking a Sunday drive with $4 a gallon gas in the tank, the President had two Air Force jetliners fly 13-year-old daughter Malia and 12 of her little friends, plus 25 Secret Service officers to Oaxaca Mexico for Spring Break. How's that for feeling our pain at the pump?
And finally, the President was up in Oklahoma a while back to sell TLT sandwiches. What's a TLT sandwich? A TLT sandwich is a lie between two truths. The President said he's going to "expedite" the approval of the Keystone pipeline. But he was talking about the 500-mile part on private land in Oklahoma and Texas. That leaves only 1,200 miles between where the oil is and where the pipeline begins.
Ken Byler is a Star columnist, an author and artist. Email him at kbyler@tx.rr.com.
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