Domestic oil

Andrew Oh-Willeke has an exhaustive post up concerning domestic oil production that you must read. It brings together many of the topics that I have discussed in the past in a comprehensive manner that really connects all of the dots. Andrew utilizes data from The Wilderness Campaign, an organization that I have also relied on in the past.

Bottom line, the U.S. is no longer a major player in the global oil market and thus the very modest amounts of oil that we can produce domestically will have a negligible effect on world oil prices, much less domestic gas prices. Add in the potential environmental damage to extract the oil and the greenhouse emissions to convert oil shale to actual oil and the scales tip precipitously against domestic oil production.

Our time, energy and money are all better spent on developing alternatives.