Moses Kagan's Aurora Borealis

I'm going to quote Charles Kauthammer at some length:

"Gas is $4 a gallon. Oil is $135 a barrel and rising. We import two-thirds of our oil, sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the likes of Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. And yet we voluntarily prohibit ourselves from even exploring huge domestic reserves of petroleum and natural gas.

At a time when U.S. crude oil production has fallen 40 percent in the past 25 years, 75 billion barrels of oil have been declared off-limits, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would be enough to replace every barrel of non-North American imports (oil trade with Canada and Mexico is a net economic and national security plus) for 22 years.

That's nearly a quarter-century of energy independence. The situation is absurd. To which John McCain is responding with a partial fix: Lift the federal ban on Outer Continental Shelf drilling, where a fifth of the off-limits stuff lies."

No matter how often their ideas are discredited, there are still some who believe that we can drill our way out of our energy problems. Rather than make the argument(s) again, I instead propose that you read the following article from Mother Jones: The Seven Myths of Energy Independence.

Labels: Krauthammer, oil