Part of that drop in production you mention is the fact that in the 70’s we stopped pumping oil off the coast of California, and blocked all attempts to drill of the coast of Florida. We know that there are 10 billion barrels of oil just in the Santa Barbara costal oil fields that were shut down in the 70’s would that not account for some of the decline? Older fields are drying up because they have been pumped, new fields are supposed to go on line but don’t because of regulation. The only place we can get the oil is from less restrictive countries.



In the Dakotas we have known the oil was there since the 50’s but it was too expensive to drill at that time, now it is cheap yet we can’t bring it on line due to regulations that prevent it.







Okay you say these in conjunction with what we are already pulling out of the ground is not enough. According to you we can not drill our way out of the problem, what is your solution to the problem? How can we fix this YOUR way?



All right! Now I see, it all becomes clear now. You are insane. I mean no disrespect but you have to be crazy to propose this solution without knowing what you are talking about. Yes, the European way is a good first step and over decades they slowly changed over one small town at a time. With populations of under a hundred million you can move a bit quicker.

With the United States that has a population of over 300 million not including illegal’s changing over the country will not be easy or quick. Europe started its change over in the 70’s and they are no where near finished. Your solution is to make the same change in less than ten years. This is not impossible but it is impossibly expensive. The cost of changing over the California school system to CFL’s and putting up solar panels was costing them more than they were saving. The cost was so high it broke the budget and they had to call a halt to the transition because they had reached the point where they could not pay the electric bill and pay teachers. That is just one district in one state only dealing with school property. To then tear down the shopping malls and all the buildings and build it in the European style would halt all progress in the country.

What you may not have noticed is oil is not the only thing that there is a world wide shortage of. I have a real estate business. There has been a world wide shortage of cement for the last ten years. This is one of the things that have driven up the price of homes because China and India are also on a building spree. One of the reasons they use up so much gas is building up their infrastructures so while the demand has not risen more than expected for the rest of the world China and India are both working at an accelerated pace stripping away supply that no one anticipated and creating demand. Food is also becoming of short supply because of misguided legislation to solve the fuel crisis. But I digress, the point is that there is not enough cement to build new buildings without increasing the cost by a factor of 4 and there is not enough fuel to tear down anything just to build it better. Your solution will take at least 50 years per state to do it in a cost effective method.

This leaves us back to the only solution is to drill for more oil because we have the technology to continue to improve on what we have but nothing else is anywhere near ready to go online.

Didn’t they once try to have it carpeted but could not decide on a colour?   

And that is the main reason. YOu have twice the people in less space, so public transportation is viable. And in the US, in some places like the big cities, it is viable as well. But not for the vast majority of people.

The problem with the democrats is just that. They are trying to apply European solutions to American problems when the sources and solutions are vastly different.

Nevertheless, the average American mileage is only 90 per week.

Miles per week? Try about 200+ - 12k/52 = 231. The 12k is the "low" side of an average car usage.

But regardless, America (and Canada which is just as bad per capita) is very spread out. Europe is packed in.

That says it all, and is why congress is so freaking clueless! SPeculators do not control the odds, they bet them! The good ones do so intelligently. The bad ones lose. But in the end, they have as much effect on price as the gopher rats do.

In simple terms - speculators do not control the price. As they are just bidding on future contracts that SOMEONE has to use. They can bid up the price to a gazillion dollars, but if no one is going to pay that for the actual product, they lose.

Yes a total blunder--like Gov. Cuomo buying a plant for $1 then demolishing an extraordinary state of the art nuclear power plant.  

Where did you get this statistic?

I only work 6 miles from home - that's very very close for a typical American.  That's 60 miles just during the work week assuming I only go to and from work.  And I'm no where near average.

The nit has been picked.   



President James Earl Carter Jr. a part of the nuclear Navy with tons of knowledge of nuclear reactors allowed our ability to deal with the fuel crisis of his time to dwindle to nothing. He stopped drilling, he stopped the nuclear industry. But he was a man of peace.

I think you may have brushed the truth - per capita. Meaning every many woman and child. Since children dont drive, that does lower it somewhat - not including truckers.