This is something I've been wondering about. If President Nixon hadn't been so badly distracted by a certain other issue - and you know the one I mean - how successful could Project Independence have been?
Project Independence was the rather optimistic name for a plan to get the United States entirely off foreign oil by (IIRC) ten years after the 1973 OPEC embargo. That obviously didn't happen. I'm not entirely clear on the whole story, although I would guess that Nixon being otherwise occupied didn't help. I know that at one stage the AEC found itself the lead agency on planning the R&D, and then proceeded to use it as a platform to beg for more money for the fast breeder and fusion, which - while they might be worthy projects - were not exactly addressing the issue at hand.
I doubt we could get off foreign oil entirely in ten years by any means short of the collapse of industrial civilization, but how far could we have gotten?
Project Independence was the rather optimistic name for a plan to get the United States entirely off foreign oil by (IIRC) ten years after the 1973 OPEC embargo. That obviously didn't happen. I'm not entirely clear on the whole story, although I would guess that Nixon being otherwise occupied didn't help. I know that at one stage the AEC found itself the lead agency on planning the R&D, and then proceeded to use it as a platform to beg for more money for the fast breeder and fusion, which - while they might be worthy projects - were not exactly addressing the issue at hand.
I doubt we could get off foreign oil entirely in ten years by any means short of the collapse of industrial civilization, but how far could we have gotten?
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