Political Quotes

“Today oil, I think, went to its highest price ever, about $140 a barrel. So all of America is now thinking about energy and oil, and I would like to start this evening's discussion by referring to some comments made in a speech 51 years ago, the 14th day of this past May, by Hyman Rickover, the father of our nuclear submarine, to a group of physicians in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Hyman Rickover was a very perceptive person, and every time I read this speech I am again amazed at how prophetic and insightful he was. He says in this speech 51 years ago, Remember now, there is nothing man can do to rebuild exhausted fossil fuel reserves. They were created, he says, by solar energy 500 million years ago and took eons to grow to their present volume. In the face of the basic fact that fossil fuel reserves are finite, the exact length of time these reserves will last is important in only one respect--the longer they last, the more time do we have to invent ways of living off renewable or substitute energy sources and to adjust our economy to the vast changes which we can expect from such a shift. What he's saying is that it's obvious that oil cannot be forever. That it is finite; one day it will run out.”