The cost of electricity is mainly related to the use of coal and urauim (for use in nuclear power plants).  We have enormous supplies of these resources in the US to produce all of our electrical needs without the use of oil!  We should greatly increase the building of nuclear power plants - a very efficient and clean source!

Oil (and natural gas) are abundant in enormous quantities in the US including Alaska, off shore along the Pacific coast, the Gulf of Mexico and in oil shale in the upper middle US and southern mid-Canada, and from Mexico if needed! 

We can save on energy costs by developing these resources right here if only politicians influenced by mainly left wing Liberal beaucrats with unreasonable regulations would get out of the way!  This development can also be accoplished in an entirely environmentally friendly manner!   

Meanwhile we are left at the mercy of oil mostly from the middle east and unstable countries, and we cannot posibly live without large supplies of oil and even remotely maintain our economy and standard of living!

Insisting on developing known and new alternatives for oil should proceed, but at this point no reliable alternatives exists! 

There is no doubt that ALL of the political rhetoric about energy independence in the USA is just that. It will be decades, if ever. 

Offshore oil at the West Coast is minimal. The total ANWAR output will not feed US needs for a year.  The Gulf of Mexico is already heavily drilled, and multi million dollar dry holes are being drilled under 5-10 thousand feet of water.  And going down three more miles. If we decided tomorrow to utilize only nuclear energy, we would need decades to build the plants, and the waste disposal is still not solved.

OIl shale and oil sands are SO environmentally destructive as to defy the imagination. The toxic waste pond for the Syncrude facility in Canada is the largest man made earthen dam in the world. The pond is thirteen MILES long and leaking heavy metals into the Athabasca river. There is not enough fresh water IN CANADA to produce the oil needed to supply a third of America's needs. (Huge amounts of water are needed to produce oils sands oil). Most of Canadian natural gas production already goes to oil sands oil production. It takes one barrel of energy to produce two or three of oil.

 America has lived a high life for decades.  Now we must learn to dig in and learn to STOP WASTING ENERGY, not to produce more of it to throw away on plastic playthings, SUVs, and heating 3000 square foot homes.
 

Some motorhomes guzzle gas.  People ask,"How many gallons to the mile did it use?"

We decided that by the time we paid personal property taxes and vehicle insurance on ours, then paid a license tag fee, plus the cost of gas after it went up and the extra time it took us to get there, that we would rather drive, eat out and stay in a motel. The costs are about the same, unless you go away from home a lot.  I won't even mention that you could earn a lot of interest on the amount you pay for the motor home, if you put it in a savings bond instead, since interest is falling fast.

We had a motorhome earlier that we pulled behind us, which was nice because you could unhook it once you got to your destination, we could drive into town to shop, without dragging it behind us. We used it at the lake.

It was nerve wrecking driving either one in the unfamiliar cities.

Having a home on wheels made it possible to go in it to smoke, when visiting distant relatives.  People are so funny about smoking, I go outside to light up and freeze in the winter and burn up in the summer.

Now that my husband has retired, we may rethink owning a motorhome, if we start doing a lot of traveling. Gas would have to go down first.  Even then we would buy a high efficiency one. 

But, after being all practical about it, motor homes are fun!  That is worth something.