It was never a viable concept in the first place. There is no nation on this planet thats industrialized that is ‘energy independent’ and there never will be.
Its a fools errand talking point.
How about we give it a try!!!!
How about Alaska? Do states counts?
I understand what you are saying. In a free market, goods go to the highest bidder or the bidder that garnishes the largest profits for the producer.
If restrictions were removed and the cost to drill, refine, ship and sell petroleum were left to free market demand here in the US, then American companies would be able to sell oil to America for the largest profit and lowest price because of lower delivery and refining costs. Shipping and import/export costs are a factor.
The highest bidder would still be subject to the market prices. But a large infusion of supply into the market with lower costs of doing business would indeed lower the price and enable American "Big Oil" to make "obscene" profits by doing business mainly with American businesses and consumers. Higher supply spurred by American "exploitation" of our protected ice fields and ocean would add a significant boost to the world supply and tip the balance of OPEC's influence. The Middle East might actually have to start competing for customers instead of sharing them.
I expect monopolies would flourish as the "fat cats" got rich while improving the standards of living for all Americans. Then we would have to go back and enact reform to help the little guy compete.
This fantasy assumes that environuts and anti-capitolists did not exist or were relegated to irrelevance.
2006 Energy Balance for Norway
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=NO
2006 Energy Balance for Denmark
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=DK
2006 Energy Balance for Saudi Arabia
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=SA
2006 Energy Balance for Russian Federation
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=RU
This may be true but there is no reason for us to tie our economic hands behind our back in the name of the environment. Obama's edict weakens our country and helps us remain dependent on our enemies. This man is a disaster for this country.
I don't think Russia got the word. Shortly after the Korean War, the nation that was known as the USSR run by Stalin was considered a non-oil producing state. Stalin got a peek at a report that there was viable refilling oil deposits located deeper than any previously known deposits. He began an aggressive ultra deep oil drilling program. Today, Russia is regularly tied for 1st and 2nd as the top oil producer in the world.
Just a few years ago, a new field was discovered in the Gulf of Mexico by Shell Oil (IIRC) and it's proven to have increased our reserves by over 75% but the enviro whackos won't let us drill it like it should be drilled. There is even a part of that field that is near the Florida town of Gulf Breeze and it is sitting in a bubble very near the ocean floor. There have been estimates that if it were tapped, viable oil supplies could be reaching our refineries within 18 months!
DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW!
We can in fact drill our way out of this problem. But there are too many competing globalist, socialist,elitist agendas that would be shattered if we got to complete energy independence and so it will never be allowed.
How about less dependent on energy from sources that are otherwise bent on our destruction .. will that work for you?
Its a fools errand talking point.
Hmmmm - So you know that there are no energy discoveries or advancements ever to be made for the rest of time that would provide a supply solution to the world. Remarkable.
The way I see it: Oil under the seabed is worth somewhere close to $0/barrel more or less. Oil in a barrel is worth closer to $40. Irrespective of "energy independence", pulling about a billion barrels of oil from under the seabed and putting it into barrels (I know, they don't really do that) would create about $40,000,000,000 of wealth for Americans. This $40,000,000,000 would be divided between the shareholders of oil companies (a small piece), the government (a bigger piece) and oil workers and oil support workers (the biggest piece.)
“It was never a viable concept in the first place. There is no nation on this planet thats industrialized that is ‘energy independent’ and there never will be.
Its a fools errand talking point.”
That’s because dependence on imported oil, and all the national security problems it creates, is more profitable than independence from foreign oil.
“It was never a viable concept in the first place. There is no nation on this planet thats industrialized that is ‘energy independent’ and there never will be.
Its a fools errand talking point.”
If I remember, the day President Bush announced this last summer; that started oil prices falling from their highs.
No one ever said this would make us energy independent. We need to be drilling for every barrel available at current market prices.
Lower oil prices mean less dollars leaving our nation. Always a good thing.