A week ago, a young friend and I were clearing brush from the edge of my hayfields. We couldn't help but look around and love the beauty of our county.

The next day I filled up the car's gas tank. And then I thought of the lengthy fight going on here and nearby over the location of additional power
lines to serve our growing population. Unpleasant as power lines are, they are something we can live with, albeit not willingly! But the shortage and increasing cost of gasoline and diesel are critical. And are likely to get much worse!

The increasing price of gasoline, indeed of any form of energy for transportation, should make us think, then ACT! Time is not on our side. We know world demand for energy is rising rapidly, due in great part to the ongoing shift of some three billion people from undeveloped to developing, mainly in the Far East. At the same time, supplies of crude oil, the most flexible energy source, essential for transportation, have probably peaked and started a slow decline - just as demand starts a steady rise!

Besides actual shortages, political problems threaten oil supplies. We're all shocked by current prices at the pump; imagine if suddenly we were unable to find gasoline or diesel available at any price? How would we get to work? Shop for groceries? To the doctor's? Or even run my three cylinder, fuel-thrifty, thirty plus years old Deutz diesel tractor? Political problems in Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria, Iraq could suddenly result in a drop in available supplies of crudel. With demand so very close (less than 2 percent) to supply, shortages would suddenly blossom, worldwide and prices explode!

What have we done to prepare for such a contingency? VERY LITTLE! A few weeks' supply in the national oil reserve won't last long.
Yet we have, in our own country, enough energy in the form of coal to supply our energy needs for hundreds of years. You might say, "But we can't put coal in our cars!" Yes we can!!
In the early 1920s, two German chemists, Fischer and Tropsch, developed a method to convert coal into liquid fuel. Having little crude, the Germans ran much of their war machine during WW II on such "artificial" fuel. Today it is used in South Africa; Shell Oil has a plant in Indonesia, producing "crude oil" using an improved Fischer-Tropsch process for near $35 a barrel. (Today's world market price is over $115/barrel.)

So solving our "oil shortage" certainly isn't a technical problem! If we act, it would in time give us energy independence, save untold billions sent abroad annually for imported oil, create more good jobs at home, help our balance of payments, and bring prices down, seriously reducing transportation costs. It will take time; let's hurry!

Washington hasn't done much, if anything, to help! Both the Executive and the Congress have been equally and grossly negligent - nor do candidates for the presidency offer practical, do-able solutions! Maybe it is time for us to speak up. Individually we have little influence. But if the energy and talent, now focused on what can be viewed as a peripheral, minor problem with power lines, were aimed at helping solve a serious, potentially economically destructive threat, there might be progress.

Think about it: the U. S. currently produces a bit less than 40 percent of needed crude oil. Even if nothing happens to reduce supplies by accident or politics, unlikely, growing world demand will keep prices rising. Why pay, when we own the raw materials for energy independence at a lower cost? Besides being "good for the country," available fuel at reasonable cost is vital for us living in Rappahannock: who can afford to live here if it costs so much to get anywhere? What will happen to property values when people decide they can no longer afford this wonderful life, or the commute?

Availability and cost of energy determine the standard of living people enjoy up and down the economic ladder! Do we want to retreat to the horse and buggy era? Wouldn't work: too many people to feed, to move! So what can we do?

We all can and should "push" our leaders, Executive and Legislative, to encourage, and remove roadblocks from, the development of new forms of energy, especially coal to oil. We have the needed raw materials; we have the technical know how; we have the skilled labor and management; the incentive certainly exists! If governments remove obstacles and provide management, the free market and American labor will solve our energy shortage. The grandchildren of those who won WW II can "win" the energy war!

Let us, individually and organizationally, devote our energies to getting adequate energy at reasonable cost for our country, using materials and methods that work, now!