Why isn't this country energy independent?

Question

The U.S has enough coal to fuel all of our vechicles and power our businesses. Cmon, industries are being wiped out and we will all be out of jobs soon.

Answer 1

It's because it comes down to the almighty dollar, my friend. The government is making WAY too much money off the fuel companies. I think it is funny that the United States is the ONLY country in the Western world that still operates the way they do. This country is going to heck in a hand basket.

Answer 2

For starters, destroying our environment by mining and burning coal is no way towards energy independence.  But really, the answer to your question is that we geared all of our industrial production towards the use of oil, and then didn't have enough to meet our needs as we grew.  The solution is to harness America's greatest resource, our inventive minds and frontier spirit to lead the way towards a new energy paradigm.  Not only will this lead to a better, more sustainable country and world for our future generations, it will create a new industry and hundreds of thousands of well paid jobs.

Answer 3

Mostly because we blew the chance to generate all our stationary power using nuclear power plants, reserving petroleum for mobile uses.

We can still do it, but it will take 20 years at least to achieve energy independence if we start today.