Letter below was published in the Star-Ledger on March 23, 2022.
Clean sources are key to energy independence
There is much hand-wringing today about rising gasoline prices and finger-pointing about our failure to achieve energy independence in the United States. Many argue that if we drill more crude oil here, we will see lower and more stable prices at the gas pump. They forget that oil is a commodity that is traded globally, and that domestic and world prices rise and fall together.
Clean energy sources — wind, solar, nuclear, and hydroelectric — are not imported and rarely traded globally. If a person recharges the battery of his electric vehicle from an electric grid powered by clean energy, his or her cost will not go up appreciably when a dictator goes to war with his neighbor.
U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th Dist., lays out this argument in his excellent op-ed published in the Star-Ledger on March 15. His closing comment was “But the best way to lower energy costs for good, while telling Putin and his ilk to go to hell, is making America the world’s clean energy superpower.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Bill Allen, Basking Ridge