In Oil Addiction David Foster writes:
The phrase “oil addiction” has come into common use…in his speech the other night, Obama generalized this to “addiction to fossil fuels.”
A little historical perspective…
Before we were addicted to oil, we were addicted to coal.
…
Before we were addicted to coal, we were addicted to wood.
…
Much of the talk about oil and alternative energy ignores a key point: in the United States, very little oil is used for electricity generation. Hence, all those solar cells and wind turbines, even should they achieve enough scale to represent a material part of U.S. electrical generation, don’t directly cut oil consumption.
Ellipses are mine.
Perhaps another way to state it?