Quote Originally Posted by Total_Blender
The deal with oil/energy is not a supply issue. Even when gas prices were $5 a gallon and there were long lines at the pumps, there was enough to go around.

Oil is traded as a commodity. The price is set by the market. A barrel of American oil sells for the same price as a barrel of oil from Saudi or Iran. Increasing the supply without increasing the demand would just create surplus.

If we do increase production of our oil, it is more of an issue about the security of the supply. We are not fully using the oil that we produce domestically now, we are exporting it. I would think that to address the problem as an issue of securing the supply we should create incentives to use the oil that we are already producing domestically and try to cut down on the oil we are importing.

The way to do that is to increase our refining capacity, and to distribute and network our refineries so that the shortage the Southeast experienced after hurricane Ike last year doesn't happen again. Not many refineries have been built in the last 30 years, so if we examine the process and impact of refineries, there might be a feasible way to increase refining capacity while mitigating environmental impact.

But even as we make production of oil more efficient, we should also seek to decrease consumption. We should invest in alternative energy now while it is an option, and not later when there is no other option.

I get my news mostly from the New York Times, CNN online, and Z-communications.

http://www.zmag.org/znet

I'll go to Fox News now and then for a conservative-slanted prospective, and sometimes I listened to Weasel Radio (Ben Weasel from the band Screeching Weasel hosts a conservative talk radio show) when it was on... it hasn't been on since December though:

http://www.espn1070.com/pages/weaselradio.html

I also watch the Alex Jones videos you guys post, really, I do.

watch the energy non crisis, there is enough oil in alaska alone to keep us going for more than 200 years. cars can get better mpg, if you are telling me we cannot i say BS. i'm sure if we dig around at the patent office we would find many "useful patents" owned by the oil companies. nuclear is good for powering us along with wind and new solar technology. the next big thing is fusion power, which is kind of what the sun does in a way, i saw that on modern marvels. i don't think shooting nuke waste into the sun would be a good idea, but who knows if it can absorb some of the elements thats good, but we could accidentally burn it out and that would suck. uhh earth we have a problem. i say we take all of it and bury the nuke waste in bush's texas ranch and cheney's backyard. there would be little opposition to this except from them lol.