"Jay Honeck" wrote:
If I were "King for a day", I would decree the following "4 Steps to
American Energy Independence":

1. New refineries are not being built because draconian environmental
rules prevent them from being constructed. As of now, all
environmental restrictions on oil refinery construction are lifted.

It's probably cheaper to "outsource" refining and ship only the refined
product into the country. Not sure why it matters that the refineries are
in the country where the refined products are consumed - you may as well
decree that some of the international oil fields be moved into the country
too since it makes about as much sense. ;-)

3. New nuclear power plants are not being built because draconian
environmental rules prevent their construction. As of now all
environmental restrictions on construction of new nuclear plants are
lifted.

Not needed:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...n6xZeeLKqBXnLg

4. By decree, hydrogen fuel is now the way of the future -- period.
From this point on, by my decree, the scientific and industrial
capacity of the United States will be used to perfect a hydrogen
distribution system to replace our current gasoline distribution
system, and all cars will be powered by hydrogen. Source:
http://tinyurl.com/6hklhf

Well at least you linked to an article that makes clear that the hydrogen
has to be generated from another source of energy. H2 sucks anyway on
several counts - and your last decree will essentially ground all small
aircraft, including your own. Contrary to your ultimate goal, I assume.

Currently, the only known way of cramming hydrogen into a small enough
volume to be of use in your airplane is, ironically, by _lightly_ binding
the H atoms to something like, oh say, carbon. A hydrocarbon.