Oil in America

[Tex]

Originally Posted by BlueK

The whole oil independence thing is irrelevant. The world price and market for oil couldn't care less where our oil was drilled. But it makes for good political rhetoric. If we don't buy our oil from the middle east, (which for the most part we don't anyway) Europeans or Chinese, or someone else will. The middle east will still be important as long as someone is buying from them and opec will still have a huge impact on the world price for oil as long as there is demand. The only way to lessen the importance of the middle east is for the overall demand for oil to go down. Where it comes from doesn't matter.

The world oil market cares about supply. We become capable of putting a few billion more barrels a year on the market, and it will indeed have an impact. Prices would also be cheaper to Americans because domestic oil would be cheaper than foreign.

Moreover, were we to export more than the measly 300M barrels/year we currently do, we would command a much greater presence in determining how the world market functions. Yes, the Chinese, the Europeans, or whoever would still buy from the Middle East. But they also might buy from us.

As I said in my linked post, I'm not opposed to alternative fuel research. I am opposed to artificially handcuffing our own energy resources as a means of "forcing" that research. Oil is going to be with us yet for a very long time, barring some new miracle resource, and we might as well press our advantage.