Oh happy, happy day! I was just minding my business driving past a Texaco gas station and words can't describe the cluster jam of cars I saw. There was a car at every pump, there was a car behind every car at every pump, and there were cars trying to squeeze in the driveways to get in and there were cars trying to squeeze out of the driveways to get out. Seeing this traffic made me a little nervous because normally I only see that kind of madness when my part of Texas has to evacuate for a hurricane. My feelings of uneasiness soon turned to unadulterated bliss as I looked at the Texaco price sign and spied 87 octane gas for $3.43 a gallon. My first instinct was to stop my car, jump out of it and scream "Hallelujah!" at the top of my lungs. In the next second, I started to question the events that led up to my euphoria about a gas price which of course only disgusted me thinking of what we all can change to prevent a potential energy crisis.

When I run across a problem, first I get frustrated, and then I do my research in hopes of coming across a solution. So once I started reading about the world's current energy situation, I discovered that there are warning signs that are present today that led up to the energy crises of 1973 and 1979. Both of those crisis:

1. started with political turmoil in some of the oil producing countries

2. were associated with low oil stocks

3. were associated with high import concentration from a small

number of suppliers

4. were associated with declining US petroleum production

5. were associated with high dependency on oil imports

6. were associated with low level of oil industry spending

7. led to speculation

8. caused an economic downturn

9. limited US policy options in the Middle East

If any of this sounds familiar, then it should because we are in the midst of most of these factors right now. I am floored that the oil that cost $30 per barrel in 2003 cost about $110 as recently as March of this year. There are those that want to prevent any potential energy crisis by digging ourselves even deeper into a petroleum dependence by doing more drilling for oil.

This isn't to be considered a rant because the only thing that a rant does is draw attention to a problem, but my focus is trying to find a solution to a potential problem. Gas companies like Exxon and Chevron can still profit from us even if we all buy cars like the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid which both get over 50 miles per gallon, but cars like these only delay the onslaught of an energy crisis since we'd still be putting petroleum gas in them. I remember when I was in middle school and my science teacher would tell us about alternative forms of energy and all the benefits of renewable energy. That's all well and good, so why isn't there a wind farm in Houston?

Right now, hydroelectricity is reportedly the most widely used form of renewable energy and supplies about 19% of the world's electricity. Most hydroeletric power comes from the potential energy of damned water driving a water turbine and generator. The biggest advantage of hydroelectricity is the elimination of the cost of fuel and since dams don't burn fossil fuels, there is only a fraction of carbon dioxide gas that is produced during manufacturing and construction. On the downside, hydroelectric projects can disrupt aquatic ecosystems e.g. dams along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S. have reduced salmon populations by preventing access to upstream spawning grounds even though most dams in salmon habitats have installed fish ladders. Other disadvantages also include scouring and loss of riverbeds, endangering species of birds by taking away their source of food and water when water is damned and redirected, and the possibility of reservoirs in tropical regions producing large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide because of plant materials in flooded areas decaying in an anaerobic environment.

For those who are scared of the water, there's also the potential to harness the power of the wind. Even though wind energy only produces about 1% of the world's electricity, it is responsible for roughly 19% of the electricity produced in Denmark, 9% in Spain and Portugal, and 6% in Germany and Ireland. The biggest upside to wind energy is the fact that it's clean and produces none of the carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or mercury that fossil fuel plants create. Another positive is that trees usually often don't need to be chopped down because farmers commonly lease their land to companies building wind farms. The biggest complaint about wind turbines is the danger to birds although birds die in far greater numbers due to traffic, hunting, power lines, high rise buildings, and let's not forget a little event called the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Of course there is also the potential of solar and nuclear energy to consider as a viable alternative to fossil fuel, but the main point is that there is an alternative. There are those that lobby against pollution. There are those that staunchly advocate animal rights and there are many of us who demand lower gas prices. Three different problems with one common solution....change. The same way we demand political change is the same way we need to demand a change in energy. A complete shutdown of all fossil fuel production and switching to nothing but renewable energy sources would be so groundbreaking that countless jobs would be lost resulting in skyrocketing unemployment, and the economy would undoubtedly suffer as gas companies freefall into a financial abyss. As shocking as this is, imagine how bad a 2008 energy crisis would be. I know a change like a complete fossil fuel shutdown would be intolerable, but I also believe that a reduction in this production and an increase in the use of solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy and the research for more alternative energy sources is definitely feasible. The bottom line is that whether we want to face it or not, fossil fuel sources eventually dry up so we can become scavengers of the earth as we seek more spots to drill or we can opt for change and clean up the environment as we help ourselves to different forms of energy.