Jimmy Carter: Undelivered Energy Speech (July 1979) [View All]

[cthrumatrix]

Jimmy Carter: Undelivered Energy Speech
originally scheduled for delivery on July 5, 1979

ENERGY SPEECH
Digital Photocopy of Section I
The long-predicted energy crisis has come. It is no longer something that experts say will happen sometime in the future. It is here. It is now.
Today, tens of thousands of Americans waited in gasoline lines -- as millions have done over the last several weeks. Many of you had to cancel holiday plans on Independence Day. Farmers and truckers have experienced shortages of diesel fuel. It is hard to get gasoline at any price -- and the price is rising fast.
People are asking: How did this happen to us -- and why? Will it be a permanent fixture of our lives? And what are we going to do about it?
Tonight I want to answer those questions. I want to speak to you honestly about the unpleasant realities of our short-term situation. And I want to point the way to a future of energy security.

Digital Photocopy of Section II
The underlying cause of the crisis is the same as it has been for many years. That cause is our massive, deeply dangerous dependence on the OPEC oil cartel.
This cartel controls both the supply and the price of oil. It is increasingly willing to manipulate both, bleeding the industrial world of its wealth. Some of the OPEC countries are unstable or unreliable. The danger of interruptions in supply is a profound threat to our economic well-being and our national security.
A generation ago we sent more oil out of the country than we brought in. By 1973, just before the first oil embargo, we were still importing only one-third of our oil, and paying only $2 a barrel for it. Now we import nearly half of what we use. And after last week's shocking OPEC price increase, we will be paying up to $23.50 a barrel -- compared to $12.50 only six or seven months ago.

Digital Photocopy of Section III
The current gasoline lines are directly related to this vulnerability.
Seven months ago, the revolution in Iran cut off its oil production entirely. As a result, the United States lost a hundred million barrels of oil. We can never get that oil back, from which we draw gasoline and home heating oil. Iranian production has now been resumed, but at a much lower level. The result is a continuing shortage.
Before Iran, the world produced as much oil as it demanded Now, the world produces more than one and one-half million barrels less per day than it requires. This leaves our country with about 750,000 barrels per day less than we need. While OPEC production has dropped since the Iranian revolution, we have also had a steady decline for ten years in our domestic production.

Digital Photocopy of Section IV

The shortage is global. It is real. And because there is a shortage, there are gasoline lines.
The lines are an irritation and an inconvenience for millions of Americans. They are a threat to the livelihood of many of us. But the stakes are far higher than that.
Yesterday, we celebrated the anniversary of our independence as a nation. For 203 years, we have stood proud and free. We have met challenge after challenge -- and we have overcome them all.
Now our very independence is in danger. The threat is not military but economic -- but it is no less real, no less serious, no less grave.

snip

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/202

Peak Oil was understood decades ago and that this day is coming. The US choose NOT to focus on renewable energy and now we will pay the consequence.