In this article, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argues that drilling for oil in the U.S. is "stupid." That we should instead put all our efforts into alternative energy sources.
I think Friedman misses a key point. We need to do both. It isn't an "either/or" proposition, it is a "both/and" proposition. As McCain and Palin have pointed out, we need to drill for U.S. oil and gas, and we need to work at top speed on alternative energy sources.
For the foreseeable future most of the U.S. is going to run on petroleum, because most of our infrastructure is designed to burn oil or gas, and nothing else. Not to drill is to keep sending our money to Arabs, Russians, Venezuelans and others who wish us ill; funding their international trouble-making with our dollars - clearly incredibly self-defeating.
At this point in U.S. history, drilling for domestic oil and gas is like taking out a construction loan when building a house. You get money to build the house and then refinance it into a regular home loan when the house is complete. We drill to get petroleum products to bridge us over to the point where we can do more with renewable/non-depleting resources.
Nobody seriously believes the U.S. has enough oil to keep us going indefinitely. It probably has enough to cover most of our needs for 10 years, during which time we must find alternatives and get them online.
