We have more oil and resources than Saudi Arabia, and what are we doing about it, NOTHING!

We cant conserve out way out of this, people are suffering big time while the environmentalists have the country by the b......s.

I hope the president lifts the ban now on drilling

Hate to break the news to you, but even if the ban on drilling in ANWR and OCS were lifted now, we wouldn't see a drop of oil for a good 5 to 10 years.

The oil companies would want to drill exploratory wells first since there's no point in spending billions on dry holes. And then they'd need time to set up the infrastructure and hire crews. And all the ships that do deep ocean well drilling are booked solid for the next 5 years.

And if you're pinning your hopes on oil shale, that's a joke. Oil companies have known of its existence for a century and they still haven't figured out how to get it out and make a profit. Oil shale, after all, isn't really oil; it's kerogen, which needs to be cooked first. It's an energy-intensive, water-intensive process in an area where water isn't exactly plentiful.

Exxon had a working plant that they closed in 1982. Because oil prices fell and it was cheaper to drill than use oil shale. As Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up."

Revrick is right about ANWR. Anyone advocating drilling there as the panacean solution to all our oil problems can look that up as well.

<link>

He's exagerating a bit about oil shale, but the fact remains that it is an expensive process, which means that it will not make for cheaper gas. The same goes for deeper offshore drilling. Just ask Exxon, who made the point of saying that their 11 Billion in profits is nothing compared to the investment they need to expand their capacity. How will oil companies make up all the money they pour into getting oil out of costly rigs or oil shale? From your wallet at the pump.

If you love $4 gas, but would prefer to be paying twice that in ten years, then pushing for more expensive oil exploitation is the best way to keep fuel prices high in the long term.

More oil will, at first, lower prices. Demand will then increase at a greater pace than it already is, and oil prices will then eventually rise even higher than they started when other current oil wells continue to run dry.

Fine, How about listening to this guy <link> ?

The solution to oil prices has to be to reduce demand rather than increase supply. All of the oil in ANWR and off shore drilling will make such a small impact it hardly seems worth it. The earth is running out of oil; the only way out of this problem is to ween ourselves off of it.

5-10 years, BUNK!

When this country went to war with Japan and Germany we moved fast, I mean very fast for our survival, this country has the means to do it, driving around Yugo's is not going to solve the problem, DRILL NOW!

gonogo20, when this country went to war with Germany and Japan, we had an industrial base capable of what you speak. That is no longer the case. One only has to look at how long it took us to up-armor the HumVee, and I believe we had to outsource some of that to Canada.

Incidentally, the crude being taken out of Prodhoe Bay, AK? A lot of it ends up in Japan. What makes you think, even for the sake of argument, we could get new oil faster then is believed, all of it would be used here domestically?

I've heard some say new found oil would cause the price of crude to go down. Maybe, but only fractionally at first, it would then continue to escalate again, as world demand continues to ever increase.

And no, I don't have any grand plan to offer, but I don't believe in giving big oil the opportunity for short term profit, as their selected executives "preferred" stock portfolios go up, upon getting off-limits areas to drill in, recinded!

gonogo,

Burning as much fossil fuel as possible is not what is best for our survival. And I'm afraid using all capitals and exclamation points just doesn't make it so. ;)