
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991                   TAG: 9102060502
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

A TIME FOR ENERGY SELF-SUFFICIENCY

NOW WOULD be an excellent time for our national leaders to give some thought to putting our country on a path toward energy self-sufficiency.

Only 30 percent of our oil comes from the Middle East. That is an amount we could certainly learn to do without. Technology exists for ultrahigh-efficiency gasoline engines and battery-or solar-powered vehicles and other devices. I suspect the reason these technologies have not been implemented on a mass scale is that the end result would cut deeply into big oil-company profits (boo hoo!)

Energy self-sufficiency would be an indirect aid to world peace because Middle East oil would become far less valuable, and less of a temptation to fight wars over. Energy self-sufficiency would also guarantee real progress toward cleaning up the environment.

I hope I live to see the day when we have national leaders who can exercise some creativity and stand up to the powerful inertia of big oil, etc. An interesting side note: Dan Rather reported recently that Texaco had registered a 35 percent surge in profits! Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

STEVE LANGSTON ROANOKE

by CNB