Japan will figure it out and China will build it.
We'll borrow money from China to buy it.

See? We don't have to do anything (which we're good at), we don't have to innovate (which we used to be good at) and we don't have to manufacture anything (which we don't do anymore).

We talked immgration reform to death, and we've talked health care reform to death. And we keep talking about innovation without supporitng it .

Meanwhile other countries are running by, busy innovaitng and conserving and doing what they can. Even by failing at something, , they learn and try something new..
We just talk, talk, talk.

We've talked our can-do abilities to death.

We do need the POTUS to address this seriously, and we need to stop bickering and listen, and do our part.

I think the govt has embraced favoritism toward the oil companies, but it's not all due to an incestuous relationship. Some of that really has been policy based on knowing the importance of energy to the economy; if Big Oil ain't happy, no one is happy basically. It appears that our energy policy has been centered on buffering the volatility of oil prices. Yet we know that real conservation only happens in response the market forces working- prices rise unti they get to the point of causing changes in behavior. If our govt hadn't subsidized oil companies so that they could keep the supply increasing fast enough to keep prices moderated, then we'd have long ago reached the point where those companies would have invested more in alternative fuel technologies because they would have seen the usage affected as consumers reacted to high prices.

So in some sense, I see both the necessity of the govt subsidies and also the problem with them. Maybe the mistake was in not tying the subsidies more toward R&D investments into green technology instead of allowing them to go just toward oil exploration (when we first tackled the problem, you'd have to first allow for increased oil exploration to meet the gap until the new technologies came on line- but there could have been a time schedule proposed to do this.)

Does someone have more knowledge than me about the actual policies that have been in place (I'm basing it on rather broad but shallow understanding of the situation) to either confirm if my understanding is accurate or correct me if I'm wrong?

I agree with Mike_P about the technology although the 'ownership' issue is a bit sticky when it comes to also wanting to extend usage of new energy technology to developing nations. I don't think it's in our interest to stifle development and further the divide between the haves and the have nots on the global scene.

We've kind of done it before. After losing, or at least endangering, our lead in semiconductor technologies in the late 70s and 80s to the Japanese, we realized what was happening and came roaring back. Even today every desktop computer is built on US designed technologies (ie, Intel, AMD, and even if it's “built” in Taiwan, etc.) and the vast majority run on US-designed operating systems.

OK, the comparison isn't perfect, but is descriptive I think.

After doing a little research, I fully agree with you. Now the $200/barrel question: what are we going to do now?

Next thing you know, SUVs are the hottest things evah! and if you're going to have an SUV, well hell, it ought'ta be a HUMMER! and oilmen are elected pres and vice pres and whaddya know, oil is headed for $200 a barrel, and we have far less domestic oil reserves and import a far greater percentage and yet we're not much farther along than we were way back in '73 with solar, water, wind, CAFE standards, etc. America's most fundamental security is held in Arab and South American dictator's palms, and we're dumpng trillions of increasingly worthless US dollars into the sands of Babylon because of our apparently unquenchable thirst for oil.

So we've seen all this coming for decades. We were warned. We had even started doing something about it. But then we made other, easier choices. And so now we will pay a far higher price than we would have, for far less security overall. We no longer lead in the energy technologies, education, research or investment that the rest of the world is using to move away from oil. Other countries do. And whoever owns the technology will own the world.

The rest of us? Well, we're their customers. And we pay whatever the market demands.

(I love abusing the new edit capabilities on Disqus by the way.)

Yep I was a wee lad during the Carter presidency. Sesame Street and the Electric Company back in those days. One thing for certain, saying things are OK just doesn't fly. I agree with you 110%. People do need to see definitive action by the government. But they also need to stop being told it's “all good.

mikkel,

The very thought of $200 a barrel oil sends me into depression. $10 – $12 gallon gasoline? My family and I will be serial bikers with wagons.

You've hit on a great point.

Recovering form the economic effects of 9/11 drove many of the ensuing economic policies, but they were the wrong ones!

Of course, it's not just fuel, but will also be reflected in all transported goods–but again, these are real costs that we simply have not been shouldering as part of the artificial propping up of our consumer-driven economy. More accurate prices aren't the crisis; the crisis comes from stagnant wages and the piling up of individual and national debt without rational consideration of the cost of all this borrowing.

But if we can (re)learn to value what we can afford, perhaps we break ourselves of the habit of expecting that we deserve it all and more … and never have to foot the bill.

I would say, though, that there needs to be a barrier between 'crisis language' and the language of fear. That's how we got into the national security vs. civil liberteis mess.

Crisis language coupled with a can-do cooperative message fits the bill for me.

It is a politicians job to put off the day of reckoning. The minute they hit the halls of congress the oil and gas companies are sticking huge kickback enemas up everyone of their collective hind sides in order to keep America held Hostage to oil and gasoline.