Free Republic

Energy Policy: The chief economist of the International Energy Agency says the world is running out of oil. We've been told that for the last 150 years. The only thing we're running out of is the will to drill.Ever since the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pa., in 1859, experts have been predicting we would soon run out of oil. The latest is Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency in Paris, whose job it is to assess future energy supplies by OECD countries. In an interview with the Independent, Dr. Birol says that based...

A top expert tells Congress that oil will be around for a long time and high inventories and low prices are no excuse not to find more. Oil shock? How about a no-oil shock? Be careful what you wish for, goes the old proverb. Well, as we all had hoped, energy prices have fallen — but only as part of the global decline in economic activity. This has been used as an excuse to further discourage exploration for and development of domestic oil resources. But if the economy does recover, that policy could provoke another recession.

As Palin pointed out to Salazar, the USGS assessment "estimates that Arctic Alaska has mean technically recoverable resources of approximately 30 billion barrels of oil, 6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 221 trillion cubic feet of conventional natural gas."

Stimulus: Brazil, a leader in the use of biofuels such as ethanol and in the face of falling oil prices, still plans to spend huge sums to expand its offshore oil resources. Drilling rigs are infrastructure too.With oil prices scraping the bottom of the barrel, pun intended, there wouldn't appear to be much incentive to pursue the development of new oil resources. And in tough economic times worldwide, the necessary investment required would appear to be prohibitive. As the U.S. seeks to get its economy going by building roads, bridges and bicycle paths, Brazil has decided to create jobs and...

Energy: That an Alaskan senator-elect wants to drill in ANWR is not a surprise. That he's a Democrat is. Were high oil prices what helped push Detroit over the edge?There were many reasons for the collapse of the domestic auto industry. We have mentioned the high labor costs and bloated union contracts. Others have blamed the manufacture of cars and SUVs no one wanted to buy. We'd also point out that, thanks to OPEC and Congress, fewer people could afford to buy them even if they wanted to. Detroit didn't die just because corporate CEOs had a penchant for private...