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I remember my science class in the '70s receiving the same "limited resources" indoctrination. Due to declining oil availability I was supposed to be riding my bike to work BY 2003! Instead, I zip along at 70 Miles Per Hour, and 32 Miles Per Gallon (OF OIL DERIVATIVE GASOLINE, YOU DUMMIES). WTF do they think I'm running on, cold-fusion?

When we get around to a serious look in Khazakstan, western China, offshore Africa, ANWAR, etc., we'll find billions of more barrels. The only thing limiting production is ENVIRONMENTALIST WACKOs.

Some many generations from now, oil will actually be depleted. By which time nuclear will work just fine. Or, my geology friend says there is more coal under one county in Wyoming than all the Oil in Saudi Arabia.

I remember my science class in the '70s receiving the same "limited resources" indoctrination.

LOL. I remember those same lectures. The turn of the century was supposed to signal "the end of life as we know it."

When we get around to a serious look in Khazakstan, western China, offshore Africa, ANWAR, etc., we'll find billions of more barrels. The only thing limiting production is ENVIRONMENTALIST WACKOs.

And foreign nations who may choose to retain their petroleum resources for their own purposes.

U.S. Petroleum & Crude Oil Overview
(thousand barrels per day)
	1960	1965	1970	1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000
U.S. Crude Oil Production	7,035	7,804	9,637	8,375	8,597	8,971	7,355	6,560	5,834
U.S. Petroleum Imports	1,815	2,468	3,419	6,056	6,909	5,067	8,018	8,835	11,093
Total	8,850	10,272	13,056	14,431	15,506	14,038	15,373	15,395	16,927
Imports as % of Total	20.5	24.0	26.2	42.0	44.6	36.1	52.2	57.4	65.5

Since the original Arab Oil Embargo of 30 years ago, Congress has failed miserably in its repeated promise of making America more self-sufficient in energy production. In fact, our dependence on imported oil has INCREASED from 25+% to over 65% during this period. And we've resorted to evermore frequent use of military force to secure this oil supply.

While development of domestic oil resources may provide some benefit, more significant independence may be achieved by reducing our petroleum consumption. The most direct way of achieving this goal would be to construct modern, efficient, electricly-powered mass-transportation systems in our nation's most densely populated regions and urban areas. Nuclear and clean-coal generating technologies could easily supply the vast amount of energy needed to reduce our imported oil dependencey. This would safeguard our nation's sovereignty and security by making us less vulnerable to foreign control of our energy supply.