What kind of drugs are you on? World oil consumption grew at 1.1% in 2007 (source BP.com), and is growing at about the same pace in 2008, even with the US slowing down. This sounds insignificant until you realize that excess capacity is only 2%, with many oil regions around the world in decline last year (Russia, Venezuela, UK for example). We certainly are not going to run short any time soon, and this is just one of several factors pushing prices, but we definitely should produce domestically if possible. If nothing else, it would help our trade deficit which is 50% due to oil imports.
i saw it on tv this week. couldn't believe it either. i try to find the source where this came from. fact is that derivatives trading grew significantly in the same time - and for me it is a fact that speculators are more to blame for high oil prices than anything or anyone else. and i also believe that there is more than enough oil supply currently. but some companies still seem to wait for even higher prices - obviously. it is also said that in the usa there is far too little refinery capacity - so you guys buy your gas in rotterdam - especially right now before holiday season. which makes the situation even worse of course.
we need to REPLACE OIL not find more of it. Most geologists have said there is very little significant oil here in the usa.Besides that oil is sold at international market prices.Exxon isnt gonna give us a 1 or 2$ cut in gas prices.Who the f thinks that.Newt and all these drill more here folks are either shilling for oil companies or delusional. Thanks we ve had delusions for the last 8yrs.Look whats happened to the state of affairs here.
The more the Europeans are beholden to Arabs for oil and related investments, the more they will yield to pressures to let immigrants from poor Muslim countries in, so that the Saudis et al don't have to bother helping them as is the case now.
McCain's Energy Strategy Speech 1 "June 17, 2008 ... I first addressed this issue at the outset of my primary campaign. And in just that time -- a little more than a year -- the price of a barrel of oil has more than doubled. And the price of a gallon of gas in America stands at more than four dollars. Yesterday, a barrel of oil cost about 134 dollars. And various oil ministers and investment firms have confidently informed us that soon we can expect to pay 200 dollars for every barrel, and as much as seven dollars for every gallon of gas. That may come as good news in Moscow, Riyadh, or Caracas, where economic growth and rising oil prices are more or less the same thing. But their oil prosperity is our energy vulnerability. And the jobs, family budgets, and futures of the American people should not depend on the whims of foreign powers. Oil and gasoline are the most vital of all commodities in a modern economy. Their price affects the cost of things even more basic and essential. America's dependence on foreign oil is a matter of large and far-reaching consequences -- none of them good. Whoever controls oil controls much more than oil. And in our time, much of the world's oil supply is controlled by states, regimes, and a cartel for which America's well being is not exactly a priority. Many occupy a violent part of the world -- a region all the more violent for the influence of oil wealth. Their opinion of America runs the full spectrum from indifference to hatred. And yet these regimes are today the masters of the oil market. ... In the face of climate change and other serious challenges, energy conservation is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue. Conservation serves a critical national goal. Over time, we must shift our entire energy economy toward a sustainable mix of new and cleaner power sources. This will include some we use already, such as wind, solar, biofuels, and other sources yet to be invented. It will include a variety of new automotive and fuel technologies, clean-burning coal and nuclear energy, and a new system of incentives, under a cap-and-trade policy, to put the power of the market on the side of environmental protection. But to make the great turn away from carbon-emitting fuels, we will need all the inventive genius of which America is capable. We will need as well an economy strong enough to support our nation's great shift toward clean energy. And this gives us only further incentive to protect ourselves from the sudden shocks and ever-rising prices that come with our dependence on foreign oil. Up to a point, these sudden rises in the price of oil are explainable in the terms of basic economics. When demand exceeds supply, prices always rise, and this has happened very dramatically in the demand for oil. Two powerful forces in the oil market today are China and India, nations in which a third of humanity is suddenly entering the industrial era -- with all the cars, construction, and consumption of oil that involves. There is the further problem of speculation on the oil futures market, which in many cases has nothing to do with the actual sale, purchase, or delivery of oil. When crude oil became a futures-traded commodity in the 1980's, the idea was to afford a measure of protection against the historic volatility of oil pricing. It takes several weeks to ship oil from the Arabian Peninsula to the offshore port of Louisiana. And for the buyers, it helps to know that the price will not suddenly fall while the oil is in transit. A futures contract assures importers that they can sell the oil at a profit. ... Of course, with the formation of the OPEC cartel, and the oil embargo of the early 70's, we already left behind pure economics in the oil market, and we entered a new era of power politics. No longer was crude oil simply a commodity. Now, suddenly, it was a strategic weapon. At the time of OPEC's oil embargo, we imported roughly a third of our oil. Now we import two thirds. At that time, every day, we produced more than nine million barrels of oil domestically. Now America produces five million barrels a day. Five million barrels sounds like a lot until we compare the number with the oil we use, which comes to 20 million barrels, or a quarter of all the oil used every day across the earth. Of that total, a little more than half comes from Canada, from Mexico, and from our own domestic production. That's a heavy reliance on these two nations. But there is a world of difference between relying on two democratic neighbors and partners in NAFTA, and relying on often hostile and undemocratic regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere. When critics of trade talk about unilaterally renegotiating NAFTA, as my opponent has done, that's one more concern they might want to keep in mind. ... In oil, gas, and coal deposits, we have enormous energy reserves of our own. And we are gaining the means to use these resources in cleaner, more responsible ways. As for offshore drilling, it's safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston. Yet for reasons that become less convincing with every rise in the price of foreign oil, the federal government discourages offshore production. ... As for nuclear energy -- a proven energy source that requires zero emissions -- we haven't built a new reactor in 31 years. In Europe and elsewhere, they have been expanding their use of nuclear energy. But we've waited so long that we've lost our domestic capability to even build these power plants. Nuclear power is among the surest ways to gain a clean, abundant, and stable energy supply, as other nations understand. One nation today has plans to build almost 50 new reactors by 2020. Another country plans to build 26 major nuclear stations. A third nation plans to build enough nuclear plants to meet one quarter of all the electricity needs of its people -- a population of more than a billion people. Those three countries are China, Russia, and India. And if they have the vision to set and carry out great goals in energy policy, then why don't we? ... We can do this in ways that are consistent with sensible standards of environmental protection. And in states that choose to permit exploration, there must be an appropriate sharing of benefits between federal and state governments. But as a matter of fairness to the American people, and a matter of duty for our government, we must deal with the here and now, and assure affordable fuel for America by increasing domestic production. ... Along with the harm that America's dependence on foreign oil has inflicted on our economy, there remain other costs that are even greater and harder to count. The massive wealth we have spent over the years on foreign oil is not flowing to the most upstanding citizens of the world. When trillions of dollars are transferred to other nations in exchange for oil, the consequences are serious and pervasive. But they can be understood in three simple ways. The first takes the form of a current accounts deficit that has drained vast sums out of the American economy. We are borrowing from foreign lenders to buy oil from foreign producers. In the world's capital markets, often we are even borrowing Saudi money for Saudi oil. For them, the happy result is that they are both supplier and creditor to the most productive economy on earth. For us, the result is both dependency and debt. Over time, in interest payments, we lose trillions of dollars that could have been better invested in American enterprises. And we lose value in the dollar itself, as our debt portfolio undermines confidence in the American economy. As bad as all that is, the second consequence is worse by far. Oil revenues are enriching the enemies of the United States, and potentially limiting our own options in containing the threat they present. Iran alone receives more than 66 billion dollars a year from oil sales, even as that regime finances terrorists, threatens Israel, and endangers the peace of the world with its designs on nuclear weapons. Moreover, by relying upon oil from the Middle East, we not only provide wealth to the sponsors of terror -- we provide high-value targets to the terrorists themselves. Across the world are pipelines, refineries, transit routes, and terminals for the oil we rely on -- and Al Qaeda terrorists know where they are. Osama bin Laden has been quite explicit in directing terrorists to attack the oil facilities on which so much of America's economy depends. They have come close more than once. And we are one successful at tack away from an economic crisis of monumental proportions. Even if our economy were somehow immune to this threat, the vast wealth we shift to the Middle East, Venezuela, Angola, and elsewhere would still have a third harmful and perverse effect. It would continue to enrich undemocratic, unjust, and often corrupt regimes. Some of the most oil-rich nations are also the most stagnant societies on earth. And among the many luxuries their oil wealth affords them is the luxury of ignoring their own people. In effect, our petrodollars are underwriting tyranny, anti-Semitism, the brutal repression of women in the Middle East, and dictators and criminal syndicates in our own hemisphere. We cannot allow the world's greatest democracy to be complicit in such corruption and injustice. America's most vital interests call us to the mission of energy security, and so does our sense of honor. And the straightest, swiftest path to energy security is to produce more, use less, and find new sources of power -- so that no commodity can determine our security, and no crisis can undermine our economy. ..."
McCain's Energy Strategy Speech 2 "June 18, 2008 ... Even one extra penny at the pump costs our people a total of one billion dollars more in a single year. And there are other costs to our economy as well, like the effect of oil imports on our trade deficit. Petroleum-related imports came to 331 billion dollars last year, and the bill keeps rising. We are actually borrowing from foreign lenders to buy oil from foreign producers. Over time, in interest payments, we have lost trillions of dollars that could have been better invested in American enterprises. The sum effect of these international deficits is a weaker dollar that undermines confidence in the American economy. The weak dollar is a further tax on the economy in the form of higher prices for everything we import -- including oil itself. And we wind up caught between the rock of slower growth and the hard place of inflation. ... In the short term, this requires more domestic production, especially in the Outer Continental Shelf. We need to encourage production in ways that are consistent with sensible standards of environmental protection. And in states that permit exploration, there must be a sharing of benefits between state and federal governments. But as a matter of fairness to the American people, we must assure affordable fuel for America by increasing domestic production. ... In the big picture, of course, more domestic production of oil is only part of the solution. We need a fresh start as well to meet America's growing electricity needs. And if we're looking for a vast supply of reliable and low-cost electricity -- with zero carbon emissions and long-term price stability -- that's the working definition of nuclear energy. One obstacle to expanding our nuclear-powered electricity is the mindset of those who prefer to buy time and hope that our energy problems will somehow solve themselves. It has a lot more to do with the politics of matter than with the merits. And you can observe this approach even in the case of the senator from the state with more nuclear power plants than any other. Senator Obama says, "I am not a nuclear energy proponent." I think that makes him a nuclear energy opponent, though he does have a knack for nuance and it's not entirely clear. In any case, I am a proponent of this clean, safe, and efficient source of energy. Right now, we have 104 nuclear reactors in our country, generating about twenty percent of our electricity. Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years. And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone. China, Russia, and India are all planning to build more than a hundred new power plants among them in the coming decades. Across Europe there are 197 reactors in operation, and nations including France and Belgium derive more than half their electricity from nuclear power. And if all of these nations can find a way to carry out great goals in energy policy, then I assure you that the United States is more than equal to the challenge. So, if I am elected president, I will set this nation on a course to building 45 new reactors by the year 2030, with the ultimate goal of 100 new plants to power the homes and factories and cities of America. This task will be as difficult as it is necessary. We will need to recover all the knowledge and skills that have been lost over three stagnant decades in a highly technical field. We will need to solve complex problems of moving and storing materials that will always need safeguarding. We will need to do all of these things, and do them right, as we have done great things before. At the same time, we must invest more in the great task of acquiring clean-coal technology. Coal is a strategic national resource, and today provides most of our nation's electricity -- and about 85 percent here in Missouri. Burning coal cleanly is a challenge of practical problem solving and human ingenuity, and we have no shortage of those in this country. Perhaps no advancement in energy technology could mean more to America than the clean burning of coal and the capture and storage of carbon emissions. And to this end, as president, I will commit two billion dollars each year on clean-coal research and development. We will build the demonstration plants, refine the techniques and equipment, and make clean coal a reality. This single achievement will open vast amounts of our oldest and most abundant resource. And it will deliver not only electricity but jobs to some of the areas hardest hit by our ec onomic troubles. The good that clean coal can do extends around the world -- and into its skies. Once we supply the means of clean-burning coal and carbon capture, nations everywhere will pursue the same end: abundant energy with low carbon emissions. China in particular has enormous coal reserves that could power its continued economic growth cleanly and efficiently. And by mastering the technology, America will lead the way. In the progress of other alternative energy sources -- such as wind, solar, geothermal, tide, and hydroelectric -- government must be an ally but not an arbiter. In less than a generation, wind power alone could account for a fifth or more of all our electricity. And just in recent memory, solar energy has gone from a novelty to a fast-growing industry. I've voted against the current patchwork of tax credits for renewable power because they were temporary, and often the result of who had the best lobbyist instead of who had the best ideas. But the objective itself was right and urgent. And when I'm signing laws, instead of casting one of a hundred votes, I intend to see that objective better served. We will reform this effort so that it is fair, rational, and permanent, letting the market decide which ideas can move us toward clean and renewable energy. ..."
Right on. I am glad for these high prices. I drive a new Civic, and get superb mileage. It will finally force us to stop breastfeeding on OPEC oil, and start getting serious about conservation, energy efficiency, and making good on the 10 or so very promising alternative technologies, such as solar, wind, wave energy, geothermal (on an industrial scale, not home-owner scale), pebble-bed nuclear, etc. Wonder how fast our overall MPG would go up, if every major city refused to allow private residents to own anything that got less than 35MPG in the city. Hybrids and small cars were designed best for cities. For a few thousand per car, the average city mileage would skyrocket. And the smog and some respiratory problems would drop much. And the owners would make back most of that in reduced gasoline costs. And making most cars as hybrids would dramatically cut the cost per car of production. Bloomberg pushed that all NYC taxis had to convert to hybrids going forward. It will make a significant impact.