We have some of the smartest people on earth here in the US. I want to see us converting sea water into a pumpable hydrocarbon even if fuel goes to $7 a gallon. Why? If it's $7 when we get to thumb our noses at the rest of the world, then shortly thereafter it'll be $6, then $5 and keep coming on down. The only way we win the world oil issue, is to pull out of the game and do something different. Technology will win out every time. We can not compeat with the Asian market for oil, there's simply too many consumers.

i totally agree with you! we should just pull out because if we stay in the oil prices will just keep getting more and more exspencive! we need to start using new resources. 3% of proven oil reserves are here in the usa using that and new re-newable resources would give us enough energy to last us a long time.

thats what she said, oohhhhhh!!!!!

3% will last us long enough to carry out a plan of switching to electric cars running on clean power. One way to pull out of foreign oil is to stop buying plastics. Stop using plastic bags. Stop drinking out of plastic bottles. Bring your own beverage in a non-disposable container. This is not just about cars.

WHAT IS OIL NO BODY EXPLAIN TO JIMMY WHAT IT IS I WANT KNOWLEDGE OF OIL AND WHAT IT DOES TO US? JIMMY WHANT TO KNOW. JIMMY HAS GOOD BRAINS

Like this guy said, lets make clean, cheap energy. Also, there's lots of things we can do to make stuff more efficient, like heat recycling. Lets do those things.

We needed to listen years ago and change over to only, that is only, high breads. We are spoiled and we diserve what we are getting. I hope the price of oil keeps going up. I have the money to pay for gas in my Prius, and here in LA, it has been so wonderful to have cars off the road. WONDERFUL!!! We needed to have a whole change over in transportation in LA, but people are apathetic and need to be bottle fed. I am looking forward to the crunch and crying. Then I can do my "I told you so" dance. I saw this coming 25 yrs ago. Ha Ha!!!

"high breads"? Someone's high. ;-) It's "hybrid". Brought a smile to my face thinking of changing over to high fiber breads as a solution to dependence on foreign oil.

I love this world and everyone on it. If we help ourselves in this manner we can still have excellent bonds with all countries. Taking care of our home is important.

Develope alternative fuels. In the mean-time, drill ANWAR, drill the Florida Coast, drill the California coast, and reduce EPA regulations!

Yes this would surely help....

yes it would

I agree. We need to develop alternative fuels. We also need to take advantage of the resources in our own country so that we are not depending on foreign imports. Oil countries know that we are dependent and they take advantage of it. The public is tired of the high oil and gas prices!

You're insane.

Save The Maine Forest...Burn Foriegn Oil

What happened to American ingenuity? Let's make ALTERNATIVE ENERGY (hydro, solar, corn, air) common and inexpensive. We must build light rails, bike paths, sidewalks, pedestrian friendly cities and community commuter lines instead of highways. Let's divorce our kids from the notion they must drive. Businesses should encourage flex schedules and 4 day work weeks. America must remember how to sacrifice and embrace innovation. Our future depends on it.

Let's divorce our kids! Instead of blithely going from 6 billion people to 9 billion people, we ought to actively moving to 3 billion people on our way down to 1 billion people. We might still be able to get there an easier way through lowering birthrates globally. If not, we're very likely to get there through starvation and war and that's going to be pretty for us or good for the environment.

yup!

Providing greater networks for railway and public transportation should be a priority.

Another way of combating oil consumption would be to use it more efficiently. Using appliances that use less energy, insulating buildings to lose very little to no heat, and so on... All this saves money and energy in the long run.

Regardless of our needs, we need to find an alternative energy source sooner or later--oil reserves won't last forever. With foreign countries industrializing and increasing their use of oil, how long can we depend on it?

I completely agree with you. The problem that many people don't take into consideration is that in order to just altogether end our dependence on foreign nation for oil, drastic measures must be made within our own country.

In addition to just working diligently to find more efficient alternate energy sources, we need to work towards making compromises. This involves simple things like car-pooling to work in order to save gas. Also, this includes spending money on things we may not want to, but in the long run will help us out and the economy. As you said, saving heat with building installation and energy-efficient appliances will drastically cut back the amount of oil we as a country use.

Stupidity:Do the same thing over and hope for different results: 1976 President Jimmy Carter made an all out push to develop alternatives to oil, most of the advances made in alternatives today, are due to that short lived program BUT it was scrapped by the Reagan administration, so here we are 30 years later, square 1, voting the SAME oil interests to power,and wondering what went wrong?. We certainly got very smart people that can come up with alternatives to oil, but as a people are we ready to do what it takes? are we ready in the next gerneral election to dump this bastards we elected, buy small cars, work near home, and use public transportation? Are we as a people that smart? You tell me

Whoa! Clarity amongst so much confusion. Sweet.

Personally, I don't think it's that difficult to curb this addiction, it just involves sacrificing the tiniest bit of convenience. I ride a bike to/from work (2 miles each way) every day and I walk to my night classes (1/2 mile away) - not only is it good on my wallet and the environment, its a great way to stay in shape! When I moved to Phoenix, I made a conscious choice to live near my daily activities. If anyone knows the Phoenix area, it is a sprawling metropolitan area that is full of single family subdivisions, with horrible rush hour traffic in all directions. All I had to do is live near my activities.. not too hard! NYC has the right idea - build up not out, and provide efficient public tranportation!

Anyway, just because the government has been sitting on its a** all these years does not mean the technology is unavailable. Read the link below for an interesting perspective - although I like the idea of government taking a leadership role, the private sector can help too. The problem with our refusal to end our addiction to dirty fuels (coal included) is that there are so many externalized costs that are not taken into account. Removing EPA standards (which are so weak already) will only exacerbate these problems. We don't need more children with asthma, more ground layer ozone, or more acid rain.

I think there is a growing movement amount younger people (I'm only 22) that we need to do something about this. We're too trained in the habits of our parents - drive to the mall, drive to the store, drive to the movies, drive everywhere! But especially among the people I went to college with, we recognize that current habits are screwing us all. Look out world - we will make clean energy cheap, reliable, and available to everyone! Who needs massive SUVs whose gas costs go to supplement petrodictators in foreign regimes?? Keep the innovation and money here in the US, and we can export our technology to the world!


http://www...wanted=all

we can get 25 mpg with gas.we can get 400 mpg with the new brown gas generators, at the same time we clean the air by running are cars! look it up on the internet and join us.

A little known fact is that there is as much refinable hydrocarbon liquid roughly equivalent to diesel fuel in so called "oil shale" in western Colorado, northeastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming as there is crude oil reserve in the Middle East. For that reason I am unpersuaded by arguments that we lack the resource in the ground to accomplish oil independence. With 300 years of oil reserve at present domestic use rates in oil shale, we have time to get to work on creating the public transport systems for the nation and design and create efficient electricial devices to begin to replace oil driven vehicles. We need to focus the attentiion of the nation on this issue and elect real leaders to public office who will help make the hard decisions needed to begin this process in earnest.

We passed law to end the use leaded gas in the 70's and we stopped. We pass law to switch over to all digital public broadcasting and we switched. Now we need our government to divorce big oil and pass the next law to end the use of oil in private transport. If you pass it they will do it.

I'm not sure that as tax payers we have as much sway with our politicians as big oil.

Money that goes overseas is money that is lost to the US economy.

yes

Yes, and here is how we can do it. I think we should just get chuck norris. Let him squeeze all of the oil out of those Middle Eastern countries for his daily workout.

In the attached clips, John McCain argues that reduce our dependence on foreign oil will weaken our foreign enemies and that clean coal should be a fundamental component of energy independence. He also supports alternative fuels and green technology.

Yeah! Like Nuclear, another "clean" energy producer, and granting huge contracts to oil companies to drill in virtually useless locations like off the coast of California, and occupy all the major oil producing countries to "free" them from selling their oil to anyone but the US (or those who fund it).

Methane is enough! Capture enough of the billions of tons wasted every year and their won't be a problem. Agricultural changes will be major, as we bring the food to the ruminants and use peaked roofs to catch the methane they produce. These meatsand dairy products can still be organic and humane with oversight. The other half ofthe waste problem is our garbage. San Francisco and Alameda counties don't waste their methane, it's reclaimed at the Vasco Road facility. I run my 1998 Ford Econoline van on it. Methane is 128 octane, produces 1/4 the CO2 of gasoline, ethanol or diesel and is not just going to waste, but 23 times the greenhouse gas CO2 is. If we capture it and use it, its effect on our atmosphere becomes a second-order instead of first order. Worldwide, this would solve global warming, the energy crisis, and enrgy distribution.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama supports heavy investment in development of alternative and renewable energies and voices his concern that a gas tax holiday is not a solution.

But is more than happy to continue spending our tax dollars with military contractors, but, Oh! that's right, he's invested too. Hmmm, are they giving us the same options from two directions? Is this freedom?

Absolutely! I wonder how long it will take for all of the Obama supporters to get disillusioned with him, given his ideas are far from challenging the status quo. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt that he intends on doing what he thinks is the right thing, environmentalists should really push him for real energy reform, as opposed to feelgood soundbites that leave me with indigestion.

God, these are fun. OK, here's some stuff to fill in the gaps.

Keep in mind that 35% of US oil consumption is produced domestically. About 18.5% more comes from Canada and Mexico. Only 11% is from the Persian Gulf region.

Here's something to blow your minds. The current high prices are allowing higher cost producers to come online (including US production), increasing competition and threatening the dominance of the low-cost Persian Gulf producers.

Unless oil consumption drops dramatically, the US importation of oil is not going to stop. It's cheap energy that's entrenched. Higher cost alternatives will have to be subsidized. All alternatives will be faced with resistance from the industrial energy complex.

A more realistic solution is to raise CAFE standards. (The current 27.5 miles per gallon was last raised in 1990.) Both Bush and Obama have mentioned this, but I think we need to focus on reducing our energy consumption through increased efficiencies and changing patterns of usage. I'd really like to see an increase of taxes to curb demand (and reduce oil dependence) and I think gasoline should be taxed more heavily (yeah, boo hiss), but that won't happen anytime soon.

As for the rhetoric of political assclowns, there's no there there. Talk is cheap and so is our energy, in the big scheme of things.

So glad you like You Decide! And thanks for the thoughtful comments.

We seem to be at a critical point -- at nearly $5/gallon -- where people are starting to modify their consumption habits. Does anyone know of any projections that anticipate a "magic moment" when high prices (including taxes) plus raised CAFE standards would dramatically affect consumption? I'm sure it's far more complicated than that -- also depends on the availability of public transportation, alternative fuels, etc -- but it would be interesting to know what projections are out there.

Define dramatically? 20%? 30%? In any case, you missed my point. Energy is still really really cheap and the percentage consumers are spending on energy (including electricity/gas) is around where we were in 1981 or so (depending on your measures). So, this idea of $5/gallon as being "critical" is a bunch of media hype that's feeding off the fact that Americans were caught with their pants down thinking that cheap gas (relative to the world) was a birthright.

Using simple microeconomics, what do you think will happen if prices go up? Is energy demand elastic or inelastic? What about substitutes and backstop prices, i.e., the panacea of alternative energies? I think the answers are pretty clear, especially when you factor in how business and politics work. Oil will be around for a while.

Seriously, say gasoline were to go up to western European, Japanese levels of $1.50-$2/litre. What that? About $5.60 to over $7/gallon. Will demand "fall" dramatically or will consumers adjust? Given elasticity studies (just spitballing here), I'd expect a short-run decrease in gas (not oil) demand to be between 3-10%. In the long-run, maybe 6 - 20%. The thing is that the new CAFE standard is supposed to result in a 25% increase in average efficiency over 5 years, starting in 2011. The idea here is that even at $6/gallon, huge shifts in demand are unlikely. So, in a nutshell, I don't see any significant paradigm shifts occurring.

Interesting. And never mind the fact that so many parts of this country have no/poor public transportation, so many commuters have no option but to drive.
I look back on about 12 years ago, when it cost me about 15 dollars, if that, to fill my tank, and I commuted almost 100 miles a day because I lived somewhere where there was no viable public transportation. I shudder to think of the costs now, much less what it would be at $7/gallon.
BTW, don't miss Joel Stein's piece in today's LAT:
http://www...,0,6314598
.column

Judith Warner has a interesting confessional in today's NYT, as well:
http://war...ner&st=cse