Diversity = Stability

We’ve
all heard the term, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” That term applies
to our energy supply as well as it does to our investing decisions. By
maintaining a diverse fuel supply, we ensure that changes in demand and supply,
or in world markets, are not unreasonably disruptive to our economic well-being.

For
example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, damage to oil rigs and
refineries in the Gulf of Mexico caused much
of our gas production and refining capacity to go off line for several days or weeks.
By encouraging diversity, in the form of coal-to-liquids (creating diesel, gasoline,
or transportation fuels from coal), and by encouraging the development and use
of PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles), we could diminish the impacts of
relying so heavily on one fuel source from one region of the country.