Reality is, we must drill for oil now

Linda Vukovich of Palatine (Fence Post, Aug. 18) has obviously bought into the Democratic rhetoric about drilling for new oil in her letter, "We must overcome our addiction to oil."

Oil experts have stated multiple times they are confident that they can bring in an oil field in less than five years under the right conditions.

But the Democrats will do anything they can to exploit the fallacy that an oil field cannot be brought to full production in less than a decade. Hogwash!

Next they will tell us that the oil companies should drill on already leased government lands where the possibility of oil discoveries is low and improbable.

The Pelosi/Reid faction wants us all to believe that by not drilling for additional oil, industry will create new technology in a week or so that will power our vehicles and heat our homes either free or at incredibly low costs.

God bless them for their misguided intentions. We are all waiting and hoping for such an epic event to occur.

Now back to reality. Technology has not progressed far enough to provide reliable and cost effective solar or wind generated power for our homes or our vehicles.

Perhaps in the next two decades such improvements in technology will occur, with another 10 years to deploy and implement such sciences on a national scale.

During this period of development, we will need to heat our homes and power our vehicles effectively.

Without a plan to find more oil now and a transitional plan to phase in new technologies over the next 30 years, we will come up short and this great society's economy will come to a halt (or at least a massive slow down).

In the 1970s during the oil embargo, well meaning individuals turned to wood to heat their homes and a gasoline and alcohol blend to run their vehicles.

The downside was that large-scale wood burning pollutes the atmosphere (global warming) and the manufacture of alcohol additives from corn uses far more energy than the production of gasoline, causing further global warming.

It's hard to believe that any intelligent individual would believe any of the misinformation and rhetoric generated by our congressional representatives.

Paul Arnot

Schaumburg