I have an idea. Why don't we have a war, for oil, to get these prices down?

We need to bring more nuclear energy on line for the production of hydrogen to replace gasoline.

I agree with Mr. McIntyre that oil reserves from our traditional suppliers such as S. Arabia are not infinite. The U.S. alone consumes little over 8 billion brls of oil each year. Unknown to me until now is that S. Arabia sits on known oil reserves of 265 billion brls, preceded by Venezuela with 365 billion brls. Combined with the growing demand from other emerging economies, our supply line from these two sources leaves little room for us to sustain our economy for very long. Ethanol is not a good alternative either because it disrupts the food supply. There is movement from two coal producing states of Pennsylvania and Montana to revive the long forgotten Fisher-Tropisch method, developed in Germany during WWII, to convert coal into hydrocarbon fuels. This program could supplement other fuel research alternatives now in the works. It would certainly provide our energy needs far longer than oil.

WSJ article today said the Saudis have to pump water into the fields to get the oil out because they don't have enough nat gas to do it. Commodity superbull Jim Rogers (see Channeling Jim Rogers section item on oil- yellow label top at http://www.Barrelomoney.com) has said that this shortens the life of those oil fields. WSJ today noted that the remaining big field the Saudis hope to bring on will require that Saudis use water to bring the oil out.

There is little doubt that oil as an energy source is time frame limited. While there may be new finds in the near future, oil eventually will run out. The frame work in the U.S. for alternate sources began in the mid 1970's but oil supplies have been abundant since this period and the technologies were never pushed. It's here. Wind, solar & water can provide power. A great deal of water power exists in the U.S. that was once used for electricity generation before the grid became the most cost effective method. Many of these dams are still in place and could be brought back on line. Wind and solar need further technological breakthroughs to lower generating cost. Hydrogen production is yet a dream as there is no cost effective method for it's mass production and it will remain a limited use fuel until a future development. We can extract enough oil from coal to cover essentials like lubrication and we have abundant coal reserves. This would be more desirable than nuclear. Two problems with that power that have never been solved are the inital cost and end run waste. At present the most likely alternative is electric power and battery systems have made great strides. The practical electric car is not only an idea - it is close to here. Hybrids and pure electric appear to be our future.