CD, Your using dooms day math. It assumes that all hell breaks loose and we can no longer get any foreign oil. Reality check, if Chavez decides to cut of the USA, he has to sell the oil some where. Whoever buy his oil won't be buying someone else's oil. Do to the economics involved. We ship millions of barrels of oil to Japan, and import this same millions from Mexico.
Why do we do this. Its cheaper to ship Alaskan oil to Japan and ship Mexican oil to the gulf coast then it is to ship the Alaskan oil to the gulf coast. That is the energy industy in a nut shell. If we increased the energy output in America. The world would still produce the amount of oil its producing. This would drive the price down to the point that we would all start using more.
Most of the dooms day stuff assume that what we have now is really good. Of coarse if you'd ask the people who had just gotten used to the idea of trains and steam ships if they could live with out them, what do you think they've said. Of coarse those were replaced with what we consider better items.
When we talk about what the energy needs vs the energy supply will be next year or five years from now, we've got to seperate what is a reasonable level of energy independence. Can we keep our basic needs covered in the event of all hell breaking lose. Can we continue to to provide some level of luxuries to brighten up your day.
These, in my opinion, are with in our level of energy production. Would things change if all hell broke lose and we could no longer get foriegn oil. Yes Would life be better or worse. Depends on who you ask and when you ask them.
On top of this is, there are a few things that are worth remembering. When I was born in 73, there were only a hand full of people who knew what DNA was. When I started high School. They still had to have scientists explain it to each and every jury. They had yet to even get a good start on mapping the human Genome.
Seem a little off topic, well consider that currently a company in Florida is growing 20 acres of a test crop. This crop has not been modified in any way. It produces a type of seed that has 8 times the vegtable oil then any thing currently grown commercially. Why hasn't it been grown before. Well it's not good for human consumption.
There are in fact thousand of plants that have never been cultivated for that same reason. And these plants could be modified in count less ways. This still presumes biofuel is the way to go. You brought up solar earlier. If you really want to see solar take off then you've got to get it in to space. Then use microwave to send it back to earth. This won't really hapen untill the nano tube tech is good enough to build that space elevator.
Of coarse you can't forget that even with out any new
fuel, there is a reversing of the white flight that emptied our cities. Traffic sucks and the states are never going to get enough roads built. Meanwhile in other countries that haven't built interstates, they're more able to adapt new technologies that have less range and spead.
The notion that we should be independent in energy is about as useful as saying that the state of rhode island should be energy independent. The belief that you should be able to create all you need to live on your own land would send us all back to the cave men days. There is plenty of enegy all around us. As usual we are blessed in with a weath of plenty here in America. No is going to starve or go with out clean water for a lack of power.
If the price of oil continues to remain high, it will be replaced. More will get into sailing, others will change jobs or move to cut down on driving, still others will switch to electric or air power. There are millions of electric cars already being used in America. We currently restrict them to airport terminals, golf coarses, and for maitainence men for apartments. Slow down the speed limit and they can be freed to roam the streets.
If you step back from the doom and gloom and check out whats going on in the world of egineering and energy production, you'll see a world that has plenty of energy. Think of these times like the beginning of a house remodle. It's going to get a little messy and before its over we're going to give up on some of the extras that could be done. Not just because we don't want to spend the money, but because we're ready for things to settle down. In the near future we'll have some new ways of doing what we do now, only better.