You said:
With a couple of steps we could take a lot of the manufacturing back to our shores.
1) Cut oil imports, via using more NG, nuclear and coal; and
2) let the exchange rate drop.
From the U.S. Energy Information Administration, August 2010 Edition:
eia.doe.gov
Year-to-date, coal-fired plants contributed 46.3 percent of the power generated in the United States. Natural gas-fired plants contributed 21.2 percent, and nuclear plants contributed 20.3 percent. Of the 0.9 percent contributed by petroleum-fired plants, petroleum liquids represented 0.5 percent, with the remainder from petroleum coke. Conventional hydroelectric sources provided 6.6 percent of the total, while other renewables (biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind) and other miscellaneous energy sources generated the remaining 4.4 percent of electric power (Figure 2).
So, we have as percentages of fuel source used in power generation, 2010 to date:
Coal: 46.3%
Nat gas: 21.2%
Nuclear: 20.3%
Hydroele: 6.6%
Renewable: 4.4%
Petroleum: 0.9%
------------------
Total: 99.7
(e.g. 0.3% rounding errors)
It is not clear to me how increasing the usage of natural gas, nuclear, and coal in power generation will help cut our oil imports in any meaningful way. |
