Conservatives against oil

It's hard to judge the significance of one opinion piece, but Oliver North has used his most recent column for Fox News to call for a massive national effort to eliminate oil dependency:

Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. launched the Manhattan Project to build a bomb that would end World War II. At the time, it was the largest, most expensive scientific and engineering project ever undertaken — costing about $2 billion — roughly $20 billion in today’s dollars. To stop hostage taking as an instrument of Iranian state policy requires freeing the world from bondage to oil. A “Manhattan Project” to develop an alternative energy source would make appeasing radical Islamic hostage holders unnecessary.