Alternative Fuel Sources Post 3

   I recently found a fascinating article from nytimes.com that discussed a specific proposal over my topic, which is Alternate Fuel Sources. The author of the article, Joe Nocera, discusses about a friend of his, Boone Pickens, who drills for natural gas, rather than crude oil. The author of the article suggested that the U.S. should use natural gas to power vehicles, not just the 140,000 trucks and buses that already use clean energy. One of the facts that was made in this article was, "There are already 12 million vehicles around the world that use either liquefied or compressed natural gas."
   The author referred a bill that proposed the increased use of natural gas as the Boone Pickens bill, which suggests that America goes towards the path of gaining an independence on foreign oil, and start using natural gas, which the U.S. has more of an abundance of, to power vehicles, especially one's that use diesel fuel.
   Here's a little chunk from the article that Boone specifically agrees on, "Although Boone believes that our continued reliance on OPEC oil is dangerous, he also knows that even if you drill, baby, drill, as many Republicans want, it won’t make much difference. Quite simply, America is running out of oil. The Pickens plan calls for increased use of wind, solar, nuclear, even coal. ”I’m for anything that’s American."
  I agree with this, but the concern that I personally have is how America would be able to switch from Middle East oil to natural gas. Again, if I didn't post this is one of my previous posts, the people like Boone who drill for natural gas have to actively start drilling as if America was already using it, that way it will be accessible for newer cars to use. The transition is probably the most critical part of this process of swtiching over to cleaner fuel, because the U.S. can't just suddenly stop importing oil over on night. At the same time Americans who support cleaner gas can't just get rid of the cars that require regular gasoline. Hopefully there will be a solution to this conflict that I forsee happening.