SOLAR IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!

America's dependence on oil is a threat to our national security and our economy. Growing demand and shrinking domestic production means America is importing more and more oil each year - much of it from the world's most unfriendly or unstable regions. We spend 1.2 billion dollars a day on foreign oil. Our level of dependence could be described as an addiction. It is so strong we are held hostage. 

This dependence has continued to grow for many decades until it has reached crisis level. Americans now use 25% of the world's oil demand. However we have just 4% of the world's population. Recent projections show over the next 10 years the cost to our economy will be $10 trillion. This is money we are sending out of our economy into the economies of countries who are not aligned in our beliefs. According to T. Boone Pickens “it will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind”.

We Americans threaten to change our consumption habits if costs continue to rise. As costs have steadily risen since 1970 we have not reduced our consumption of oil. Instead we have increased it dramatically. World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn't enough of it to keep up with demand. We need to realize that cheap and easy oil is gone.
It's an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and as a people.

The addiction has worsened for decades and now it's reached a point of crisis.

In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil. Today, it's more than 65% and growing.

Oil prices have come down from the staggering highs of 2009, but lower prices have not reduced our dependence on foreign oil or lessened the risks to either our economy or our security.

So that we are not held hostage the United States established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The United States started the petroleum reserve in 1975 after oil supplies were cut off during the 1973-74 oil embargo, to buffer against future temporary supply disruptions. The United States imports a net 12 million barrels of oil a day, so the SPR holds about a 58-day supply. However, the maximum total withdrawal capability from the SPR is only 4.4 million barrels per day, making it a 160 + day supply.

Even with the security of the SPR we would be without 7.6 million barrels or 1/3 of the oil we use a day. The effects would be devastating to the average American. We need to understand this problem and end our dependence on foreign oil.

To end our dependence on foreign oil we need to reduce or replace the fuel we currently import with renewable energy. With today’s modern technologies to generate electricity this is now possible. Please join us in the renewable energy movement that is sweeping this nation. Never have we been more threatened as a nation. Never has it been a better time to do the right thing.