Press Releases

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett to Commemorate 50th Anniversary of ADM. Hyman Rickover Energy Speech on May 14, 2007

Washington, May 10, 2007 -  

On Monday, May 14, 2007 Congressman Roscoe Bartlett will commemorate the 50th anniversary of a speech by Admiral Hyman Rickover, "Energy Resources and our Future," in a Special Order speech estimated to be between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm Eastern. C-SPAN will broadcast it LIVE on cable and the Internet. Streaming video on C-SPAN can be accessed on the Internet at http://www.cspan.org/watch/. A copy of the speech is on Rep. Bartlett’s website: http://bartlett.house.gov/EnergyUpdates/.

Congressman Bartlett said, “Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of our nuclear navy, gave an amazingly prophetic speech to a group of physicians in Saint Paul, Minnesota, 50 years ago the 15th of this May. He noted that we have 8,000 years of recorded history and discussed the extraordinary contribution of energy, particularly oil, to the development of civilization. At that time we were 100 years into the age of oil. However, Adm. Rickover noted that oil and all fossil fuels are finite resources that once burned are gone forever. Chevron has a new ad campaign that acknowledges we’re about half-way through the world’s total supply of oil. We’re nearing global peak oil -- or maximum annual production of oil. What will we do when oil production begins declining while demand for oil continues to grow? Adm. Rickover warned that we have an obligation to future generations to use these finite resources wisely and to transition from fossil fuels to other alternative and renewable sources of energy. I’ll discuss the benefits and limitations of the options foreseen by Admiral Rickover and others that have emerged.”

The speech by Admiral Rickover was delivered on May 14, 1957 to a meeting of the Annual Scientific Assembly of the Minnesota State Medical Association in St. Paul, Minnesota.