Critical and Creative Thinking

Week Two Assignment

To Drill or Not to Drill? That is the Question.

James Cunningham

Critical and Creative Thinking

December 4, 2011

Rande Hoggard

To Drill or Not to Drill? That is the Question

The United States has strived to be an independent country for a long time now. The national debt has also been a factor that has been lingering around the United States for numerous years. The old ways of energy and fuel such as coal and nuclear power are currently being used by millions of people; yet, these are not the only types of energy. Other methods of energy are existent such as solar, wind, and geothermal. Most of the energy that is used by the United States is actually piped in from other areas of the world. The U.S is also in debt to these other places in the world. How is the United States supposed to become independent and free from foreign energy sources if they owe millions in debt to the ones who are providing it?

Drilling for oil in our own backyard might be a possible solution to gain our energy, opposed to receiving it from foreign countries. How would this affect the import/export relationships we currently have with these foreign countries and would they demand a payment of some sort? We cannot afford any more money tacked on to the national debt as is. Drilling in our own backyard, such as Alaska might ease the dependency on foreign countries for energy. How long would that last though? The new technologies such as solar, wind and geothermal are cleaner, more efficient and some of them are reusable. The problem with these new technologies is, they are limited and not many people have them, understand them, could afford them and will actually accept the change to switching to them.

I agree with the drilling in our own backyard as a temporary solution that would be working toward the implementation of the new technologies. Maybe instead of spending all that money on foreign energy, we could use it on putting these new...