Lee Dye of ABC news starts off by saying that our countries increasing dependence on foreign oil is our weak spot that could lead to disaster but alternative energy is too expensive and not cost effective. Researchers from the University of Colombia have found many reasons as to why we can not seem to kick the habit when it comes to oil and one of those reasons are some tax laws made a century ago and that big corporations have billions of dollars invested in oil reserves so they have no reason to switch to alternatives. The tax on oil is basically a tariff which are quite foul in a new world of free trade. It begins to talk about ethanol by stating that it would take too much corn to produce a sufficient amount of ethanol saying that we would need 11 acres to fuel one car with ethanol for 10,000 miles, about someones driving in a year. Chemical engineer Galen Suppes argues that we need the kind of alliance between the industry and the government that Canada had to get the development of their reserves in the tar sands underway.Canada gets one third of their oil from the reserves under northern Alberta which, Suppes says, comes to America for the most part. The article continues to say that switching to hydrogen would just be too complicated and that we may be looking to garbage for our energy.


Are we just too lazy to do anything actually constructive?
What does this tariff on oil do?
Which is more expensive, continuing with our oil habits or seeking out and developing alternatives?


http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=99487&page=1