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You will need to show me where they said this before I will believe it...



US Secretary of Energy: "America faces a major energy supply crisis....failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation's economic prosperity, compromise our national security, and literally alter the way we lead our lives

Bush's Energy Advisor: "Under the best of circumstances, if all prayers are answered there will be no crisis for maybe two years. After that itâ??s a certainty."

Exxon-Mobil: "By 2015, we will need to find, develop and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to eight out of every 10 barrels being produced today. In addition, the cost associated with providing this additional oil and gas is expected to be considerably more than what the industry is now spending."

And if you want pictures, here's something from Exxon-Mobil's latest Trend Report:


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What I am saying is that with oil demmand rising, we need to start looking for ways to get oil that we can't get to right now.



Except for the fact that the oil that "we can't get to right now" is only estimated by the most liberal estiamtes to be some 17% of the oil on the planet. That won't take us very long to go through, and is probably not worth the considerable investment to reach it.

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There are studies that say there are oil pockets deep under the ocean that are bigger than any field we have seen to date.



I've never seen any study saying anything CLOSE to this. In fact, the biggest oil fields we know we found over 40 years ago. We've been scraping the bottom of the barrel (no pun intended) since then. If we haven't found them in 40 years, it's not expected we'll ever find any. At least none that "are bigger than any field we have seen to date".



See that little tiny bit of Blue and White -- those are the projected reserves in Deep Ocean and Polar reserves. As you can see, it's a very very small portion of the oil and it wouldn't take long to suck it dry.

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Another solution to the U.S.'s oil woes (after all, it is the U.S.'s problems that we do care the most about right? )would be to allow drilling in formally protected areas, such as Alaska. I am not for clear cutting the forests to search for oil, but there are ways of getting the oil out of the ground that minimize harm to the land.



Just how much oil do you think is up in Alaska?

I'll tell you -- if our international sources wore out, we could survive on the oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for a whopping 6 months.

It's a source, but it's not a savior.

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If it won't be good in the short term, how can you think it will be good in the long term???



Higher gasoline taxes, if used correctly, will provide resources to create alternatives to our nation's reliance on oil -- at least gasoline produced from oil. It won't solve the problem with the abuse of other hydro-carbon-based products.

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It sounds like you don't have a problem with being forced out of driving your car that you worked hard to purchase, and you just say "oh well"?



I make plenty of money. I'll pay for gas no matter the cost -- at least for the forseeable future anyways.

You might as well accept the fact that you will be forced out of your car in the near future -- at least your gasoline-powered one.

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Everyone says that mass transit is an answer, but come on Sigma, you live in Denton, and I am sure you have been out in the sticks. Are you telling me there is going to be a train system in all those small towns?



Nope, not all of them, of course. Some people will have to pay for fuel. But they'll be more conservative with what they have and demand alternatives.

Right now we'll never see alternative fuel sources take off because no one is demanding them. Once gas breaks the psychological $5/gallon number, the demand will increase exponentially.

Unfortunately we don't really have an 'alternative' fuel that actually saves oil, since most of them take more oil to produce whatever they run on, then they would burn straight gas.

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Good God, as fast as gas prices are going up, you can still sit there and say we need to raise taxes on it??? A typical Democrat thought process if I have ever seen it! Why don't we just make ALL of the money raised from gas tax to go towards transportation instead of rasing taxes?!



Most of the money from gas taxes go straight into the Federal Interstate or State Highway funds already. Some doesn't, and we could probably make better use of that, but even if it all went to the proper sources it still wouldn't suffice.

Current gas taxes are Dollar based, not percent based. So, while time has passed on, what was a sufficient amount for new highway construction and maintenance hasn't increased, causing a severe shortage of funds. 28 cents a gallon isn't as much as it used to be, and while cars get better mileage the amount of tax they pay goes down, further decreasing the coffers.

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Or why dont we take some of that money and help pay for exploration for oil, so we can begin the process of being self dependant?



Because it simply cannot happen. Geologists haven't found a new field in the US since the early 70's. We'd have to produce several times what we produce now to ever think of being self-sufficient. And that's at current rates.

Consider that production in 2010 will be less than half of what it is today; we can't even find enough to supplement what we lose every year in production because our current wells are drying up -- you think we're going to find enough to counter the decrease of existing wells AND several times that so we can think about being self-sufficient.

By the time we find at tap any new sources, our demand will be even higher. We simply demand oil faster than we could ever hope to find and pump it.

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I know you wont agree with this, because you would rather see the government build more mass transit and keep raising gas taxes to fund it; effectively giving you no other choice BUT to use the mass transit.



You're right I don't agree with it, and simple fact is that you won't find any real expert who does.

You can throw all the money you want into exploration, but I would rather we work on developing alternatives to our dependence on oil rather than perpetuating a reliance on something that absolutely is finite.

I'm not saying throw it all into mass-transit -- just that that is an area that our nation is WAY behind on.

I'm far more concerned with the status of her nation's freeways than I am on mass-transit. By 2015 the ICC expects that interstate commerce will no longer be realistically possible. The rapidly deteriorating interstate system coupled with ever-increasing population that vastly outpaces construction adds up to a non-functioning interstate commerce system.

Significant government resources also need to be invested in the development of real alternatives to our depending on oil. Not just gasoline for our cars, but our dependency on hydro-carbons for virtually everything in our lives.


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