Freedom from fossil fuels: a diversity of fuels--including hydrogen--is what is needed for U.S. energy independence says this Connecticut legislator.

• Author: Backer, Terry

Five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline.

It's no stretch of the imagination anymore. In fact, it's just shy of becoming a reality. In some countries it's already here. And if that number gives you a chill then that same price for heating oil may very well cause you to freeze. The American economy and the consumer have had their chest laid bare to the world market's competition for energy locked in natural gas and oil.

Yet, it doesn't have to be that way. Science, technology and world political events have brought us to the place we need to be. This confluence of factors brings us to the eve of a much needed revolution in America, an energy revolution. However, in order for the public good to prevail over deeply rooted multinational interest, the people must once again join forces to lead it.

FAILURE TO LEAD

In many ways our government has failed our country. It has not in any meaningful way helped develop and create the alternative energy infrastructure we need to pull away from oil and all its attendant political and environmental ills. Instead lawmakers have relied on the world's energy producers to set policy and provide information on the very matter that enriches them. Government has given short shrift to a vast array of new technologies that can provide the energy we rely on for our society. In some ways it has even stifled the creation of incentives needed to move the process along.

Energy, most of it produced from oil distillates, is a huge cost driver for each of us on an individual level as well as for business and industry. It's not that the world will run out of oil any time soon. It's not clear if oil production has peaked although some noted experts think it may have.

But the demand for energy is growing worldwide at a rate not anticipated 20 years ago. Supplies of deeper more difficult to reach reservoirs of oil are more costly to extract. If we learned anything from our high school economics class it is the rule of supply and demand. A greater demand coupled with a lower supply results in higher costs. Supply is contracting worldwide (or the cost of obtaining that supply is increasing). Demand is growing at unprecedented rates in Asia and elsewhere. That equals higher prices for all of us at the pump and the light switch. Not to mention all our goods and services. China is an example of the world's changing economy, although China is certainly not the only rapidly developing country voraciously consuming the world's oil reserves.

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