Beyond the Rhetoric: An Energized Future at Home

By Harry C. Alford

NNPA Columnist

Climate change is a fact.  We have seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter, which rotate on an eternal basis.  Temperatures vary on an ongoing basis, which is why we have weather reports.  Man has no control over the weather. Global warming is a theory that has yet to be proven.

Former Vice President Al Gore has created a personal windfall that has given him hundreds of millions of dollars.  He claimed that by 2013 there would be no more ice caps on the North Pole.  It is 2014 and there are more than ever.  His unfounded rants even got him a Nobel Peace Prize.  He became one of the greatest hustlers of all time.

People who claim that global warming is happening try to stop every form of industrial activity in the United States.  They want to attack the lifeblood of our economy and our way of life.  Energy, all forms of it, is their target.  Their mantra is “shut it down!”  No more coal, oil or natural gas and only new forms of energy should be allowed.  This strategy is some sort of insanity and it will never win over the majority of our nation.

There was a time when our oil needs were based on importing.  We were dependent on nations that were not that friendly to us.  Price volatility was out of our control.  Today, America is robust with oil.  Only 10 percent of our oil now comes from the Middle East. Canada and Mexico, our friendly neighbors, are our principal importers.  We could be totally independent if the government would allow us to explore the vast amount of federally owned land and off shore on our coastlines.  We are limiting our potential.

If we opened up our true potential, we could become a major exporter of oil.  That would mean an economic boom for our treasury and increase jobs by the millions.  Soon, the Keystone Pipeline will be constructed from the Canadian border to our Gulf Coast.  The environmentalists have been fighting this fiercely.  But the truth has been confirmed by the State Department.  There will be no adverse impact from the construction and operation of this project.  This will be another monumental victory for our energy industry.

We have been having even more success with natural gas.  Fracking is a process of extracting natural gas from rocks buried deep into our soil.  The technique was invented in the 1950s but improvements to it have made it much more productive and profitable.  We have become the Saudi Arabia in natural gas.  No nation has more than we do. The price of natural gas is about $2 per unit in the United States.  In places like Europe and Japan it is more than $14 per unit. The environmentalists have been trying fanatically to stop the use of fracking but to no avail.  In the end, our economy wins out.  We are now taking our $2 natural gas and exporting it to other places for a very nice profit.  We have turned our importing docks to exporting docks.  The environmentalists have been pressuring the government to stop the permitting of new docks.  We will win that fight also because we are talking jobs by the thousands here.

Then there is coal.  Even our president has said he wants to kill coal. They have caused some damage with some coal mines closing and a noticeable amount of utility plants shutting down their operations due to pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency.  However, that is about to change.  Once again, the innovation of our energy industry is taking us to new heights.  We can now take hard dirty coal and convert it to clean natural gas.  While it is in the ground we can press it and separate the carbon from the gas.  The gas is brought to the surface for use by our plants.  Some of the Japanese owned auto plants in the United States have their own individual processing facilities.  What about the dirty carbon?  It remains underground.  It is shipped by way of an underground pipeline to oil exploration sites.  It is used in the process of underground oil exploration.  It never gets into the air.  There is no “carbon footprint” as Al Gore would say.

Yes, the future is bright for those of us who support our important energy industry.  Innovation is what brought this nation to economic success and it will be what ensures our future being bright.     There will be cleaner and less costly ways to manufacturing and production.  Guess who will be the players in that innovation?  Naturally, it will be our energy industry as they have the expertise and engineers to do it.  It won’t be done by “rookies”.

Harry C. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®.  Website: http://www.nationalbcc.org.  Email: halford@nationalbcc.org.