Our great Congress has just declared Canadian Oil from the Oil Sands to be an alternative fuel that is hazardous to the environment.  This declaration will prohibit our Government from purchasing this oil.  Canada is our largest oil provider and an ally.  The Air Force is taking issue with this declaration as are a number of Republican Congressmen who are attempting to get an amendment to the Bill.   I am not sure exactly which bill this is.  When I find out, I will post it.  

This decision by Congress just shows exactly how the Democrats are trying to help the rising price of gasoline at the pumps.  This will increase the price even more and especially if Canada decides they can sell all their oil to better customers.

This kind of stuff astounds me.

Canada is chock full of oil sands and oil shale.

The upper midwest of the U.S. is chock full of oil shale.

Oil from these sources is, currently, more expensive than oil bought from, say, Saudi Arabia.  However, if we stopped importing oil from nations inimical to us, the price of domestic oil (& oil from friendly nations) would rise to a choke point where oil from oil sands & shale would become economically competitive.  Only when we start using oil from these sources on a large scale will the price of that oil start to drop.

There is a universally understood economic transition from current sources/technology to a subsequent technology -- as the first technology/resource reaches its choke point, a subsequent technology/resource becomes economically viable, and as its use increases, economies of scale drive price down until that resource/technology, too, becomes scarce and the price increases until a new choke point where a third, new, resource/technology becomes economical, and so on & so forth.

Which new resource/technology could easily replace oil if prices rose as a result of refusing certain foreign sources of oil?
a. Nothing new.  Current technology allows drilling in various places like ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico.
b. Same Resource/New Tech.  Horizontal Drilling now enables us to tap absolutely VAST oil reserves in the northern Plains States.
c. Coal/current tech.  We have more coal than we know what to do with, and current technology would allow us to gasify coal to create enough oil to fuel the U.S. entirely domestically for another century.
d. Oil-shale/ Oil-sands. The amount of oil shale and oil sands between the U.S. and Canada are enough to fuel our economy for another century at little more than the current cost per barrel of foreign oil.
e. Methane/Natural Gas. We already have massive reserves of CH4.  Horizontal drilling technologies will let us tap the world's largest natural gas reserve under PA, OH, and WV (the Marcellus Shale).
f. Methane hydrates. An absolutely vast source of CH4 solidified in the ocean deeps - now being harvested by Japan despite hysterical opposition by environmentalists.


These are just the technologically and economically feasible fossil fuel replacements that I can recall off the top of my head.  There may be others.  

There are certainly sources like Nuclear energy, deep geothermal sources, hydroelectricity, and tidal power.

In addition, things like wind-power and (maybe) solar power used on an individual or local basis can reduce our need for other sources {though I question the economics of these sources}

What do all of these potential sources that would free us from foreign oil have in common?  Aside from the least economical and least efficient sources (Wind & Solar), all of these potentials replacements are vehemently opposed by environmentalists.  And, because being "green" helps electibility, they are also opposed by nearly every politician in the nation.

How can we become energy independent when the media and public sentiment are controlled by half-retarded, Socialist, anti-American, anti-progress, luddite environmentalists who (if all of their goals were achieved) would relish the dissolution of ALL human civilization (whether they realize or admit it or not)?

In Bush's press conference this morning he said he wants to go after the oil in Anwar and other US locations and build new refineries.  We have more oil in just the western states than all of the oil in the middle east, enough to last for at least 2 centuries.  If our Government would start moving in that direction, the world price per gallon would go down fairly quickly, but it won't.  Our Congress is killing us.

SoldiersMum wrote: Our Congress is killing us.

Well, not literally ...... yet.

But they're doing they're best to starve the poor in the rest of the world with the ethanol subsidies.

I heard Bush this morning downplaying the role of the ethanol subsidies in causing rising food prices world-wide.  He tried to blame it on drought, and the cost of oil.  Of course, it's mostly the US that is causing the price of oil (measured in US$$)  to rise.  

Drought?  Drought!?!? What drought?  Where? In the US? In the "Breadbasket of the World"?  Have there never been droughts before?  Has the world's food supply never fluctuated because of drought before?  What makes this food shortage so much more severe than the infinite number of temporary weather-related dips in supply throughout history?  Sorry, but you can't have a circumstance (like drought, etc) that has happened a gazillion times before and then suddenly blame a dramatic increase in world food prices on one more recurrence of that circumstance (in this case, drought).

The problem is just a reflection of the fact that Bush is at heart a Keynesian Liberal and thus fails fundamentally to comprehend even the most basic elements of economics.  Bush believes that government solves problems rather than creates them.  

Nearly 30% of US corn goes to ethanol as opposed to 5% in 1996.  Diverting corn from the food chain to ethanol was causing higher prices and shortages in Mexico several years ago!  Plus there was supposed to be a 6% of 8% decrease in the number of corn acres planted this year!  

In 2003/2004 the US was responsible for 65% of the world's corn exports.  I don't see more recent figures.  But, another site indicated that the US is exporting more corn now as opposed to a year ago.  But we only export significant quantities of corn to Egypt.  So US corn exports aren't causing sub-Saharan Africans to starve.  

Somebody else is not selling corn to them and it appears that they have never been a major buyer of US corn.

Do any of us really expect a Democrat Congress to offer John and Jane Q. Public increased independence from foreign oil, or anything else for that matter, in the absence of definitive conservative leadership from the White House? Independence for us equals lost power for them. As if!!