Crude oil could reach $100 a barrel, Chavez says

Reuters ^ | 20APR06 | Reuters

[gafusa]

The main things we should do is sell the national oil reserves, expand drilling in Alaska and the Gulf, encourage ethanol, continue to research into shale oil and oil sands, which are the real solution. If we can efficiently extract shale oil, imagine the possibilities. Us with more oil than the middle-east. Our economy would boom, and our world dominance would be assured. China would become our b***h.

[Nephi]

I disagree with selling the reserves and your other ideas may work...decades from now. Meanwhile, we should nationalize fuel formulas and begin anti-trust action agains big oil.

[R.W.Ratikal]

Chavez is off his rocker. Pay no attention to him. Without petro dollars Venezuela is of interest only to National Geographic..

[backhoe]

Allow me to drop out of Lurk and Link Mode for a brief bit of commentary- we all need to get serious about our dependency on foreign sources of energy, and use our own resources.

Our consumer-based economy is driven by and dependent on readily-available, reliable energy-- choke that off, and we'll all be back to using one rotary dial phone in the dining room, watching one TV, and driving one car per family-- probably a Hudson Hornet or a Rambler...

We need to

1) end the nonsensical ban on offshore drilling off California and Florida--read & weep:
Castro Plans to Drill 45 Miles from US Shores, But We Can't

2) build a lot of next-generation nuclear power plants, not just for electricity, but for any process requiring heat, power, or steam.
And if we replaced our existing nuclear plants with this one there would be significant benefits.

3) end Jimmy Carter's idiotic ban on recycling nuclear waste, and reprocess the stuff rather than fighting over where to bury it. Europe has done this for decades.-- what to do with spent nuclear fuel? Answer here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1468321/posts?page=50#50 hattip:  Mike (former Navy Nuclear Engineer)

4) use the 300-500 years worth of coal we have on our own land, using the new clean-coal technology.
-Clean Coal Centre--

5) and finally, there's nothing wrong with conservation, we should all practice it- but you can't conserve your way out of a shortage. Nor is there anything wrong with "alternative" energy sources- except they don't supply the vast ( not to mention readily-available ) amounts of power we need at a price competitive to more conventional sources.

We do need to get serious about this before we get strangled by a bunch of petty thieves and dictators who don't like us much.

My tongue-in-cheek collection of energy-related links:

Sticker Shock-$3 a gallon gas? Click the picture:

And kindly note, and note well-- the first reply to this post ( when gas was $1.45 a gallon ) was derisive... so, who's laughing now? My guess is $4.00 a gallon gas is next...

[Wurlitzer]

I am fed up with the piss ant response of our government to these DNA, Gene challenged thugs like Chavez, Sadam, the DHs in Korea, Iran etc.

A single assassin could take out the trash and not endanger thousands of innocent civilians and our great military.

Oh, but no, we cannot kill a single head of state! Well why not? I guess governments around the world have decided that a head of state is more important than the billions of people in the world. To that I say BS.

[Lazamataz]

It could also reach $81,299,394.00 a barrel, too.

Hey, it could happen.

[gafusa]

Cato did an article on the reserves, posting that they are would not have much use, opening them would not help much if any in a emergency, as the oil needs to be refined, and the fields are undeveloped. Selling them would allow the land to be used for producing oil, rather than just having unused government owned oil fields. I agree with your ideas, but they will not provide a long term solution. We need to create our own sources of energy.

[p23185]

How about ending Iraqi terrorist attacks and pump 10 million barrels a day directly to the US as gratitude/payback for our helpful regime change actions.

YES! Thought the Iraq adventure was going to pay for itself - that is what I heard 4-5 years ago. What's up with that?

[taxed2death]

"I'm starting to believe that the Pres. really doesn't care about the price of oil."

Why the heck should he?

It's not like he's going to be re-elected.

"I didn't used to think that but what have they really done. The energy policy is a joke."

Energy policy?

We have an energy policy?

[taxed2death]

"Republicans could do two things that would have an immediate effect on the price of gas."


What Republicans are you referring to?

The ones that accept political donations from oil execs?

The ones that are lobbied in Washington by oil companies?