I completely agree that it would drop international oil prices, but as someone earlier mentioned, we’re only really competitive if oil is expensive enough to tap things like oil shale.
We’re kind of in a sticky situation. If oil is >$100/barrel, we could probably become energy independent, but if oil gets that high, it sufficiently depresses economic activity to the point where oil gets way cheaper than that. The US will probably never be energy independent if a) we *don’t* have government subsidized/nationalized oil infrastructure AND b)the price stays under ~$75/barrel or so. It seems kind of like a catch-22 =(
Actually Royal Dutch Shell said they could recover the shale oil at roughly $20 a barrel and make a profit, even if they’re off by $10 and it’s $30 it’s still viable.
What should the price of oil, on public land, be? It has no value until consumed. As a public asset, should it not be used as collateral on the national debt. The Bolshecrats want oil to be worth zero, but, the holders of our debt should want oil to be $80. Currently, fossil fuel will always be cheaper than alternatives, because, the supply and availability are plentiful. Government will try to make fossil more expensive than alternatives. But, that will fail, because, the alternatives will have to be built with fossil fuel that is still less expensive than alternatives due to higher costs of energy. The “Catch 22” here is the more government does to enhance the political favoritism of alternatives over fossil the more it is doomed to fail, because, alternatives cannot be made cheap enough until fossils dry up. The way out of this mess is to set a zero price (plus processing costs) for publicly owned fossil fuel, or, at least market based, with unfettered access. This will allow alternatives to develop at lower cost until supplies start to dry up and alternatives become viable.
The Bolshecrat plan is to stop using $1 per watt energy now, and, in twenty years, use $2 per watt energy, while, in the interim, the world uses 10 cent energy and we freeze.
We are in this mess, because, 30 years ago the Bolshecrats decided that fossil fuel was a no-no, but, did nothing about it, except demagogue.