(via the Cul de Sac)
Heading Out links to a statement by Congressman Bartlett at Energy Bulletin.

First, Congressman Bartlett says,

more drilling just will not solve the problem.

I wish more people would hear this, especially regarding drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

Bartlett continues, “And (Saudia Arabia) knew that in their small communities, widely distributed, with the enormous line losses they had from big plants, that they would be better off with distributed production. ”

Distributed production, which also makes me think of delayed gratification or even better, deciding that we don’t need the next big/better/best thing. This reminds me of a post a couple weeks ago. There was a meme that asked, “1. If you could build a second house anywhere, where would it be?” jo(e) said,

I would never build a second house. Anywhere. Rampant development is already a problem in this country. Duh. Was this a trick question? How stupid do you think I am?

Not very.

Congressman Bartlett also says,

Political parties are not going to let the grid go cold, but what do we do when we rely on oil and natural gas as the predominant energy source for this country? We have to simply find alternatives.

First, let me say that I’m worried about the steps politicians will take. But, second, is there a long tail here? Are oil and natural gas the head of the long tail and alternative fuel sources and alternative energy alternatives the long tail? In a NY Times Op-Ed Thomas Homer-Dixon and S. Julio Friedmann say,

On balance, though, this combination of technologies is probably among the best ways to provide the energy needed by modern societies – including populous, energy-hungry and coal-rich societies like China and India – without wrecking the globalclimate.

A ‘combination of technologies’. Maybe the problem is that we keep looking for one big bang fix when we should be doing some risk management and looking at how all the alternatives add up to a big solution. Although, lifeaftertheoilcrash makes the point that

While there are many technologically viable alternatives to oil, there are none (or combination thereof) that can supply us with anywhere near the amount of net-energy required by our modern monetary system and industrial infrastructure.

If you’d like to read more, it seems that articles about this are popping up in many sources (ny times, rolling stone, mother jones, etc.) and links to many can be found at The Oil Drum and at the Energy Bulletin.