Real reasons for our dependence on foreign oil?

Wheetsin · 03-15-2007, 03:46 PM

And I am not limiting "foreign" to mean Persian Gulf countries. I mean it as in - outside of our own sufficiency. Countries with many fewer resources (in all aspects except perhaps motivation or initiative) are kicking our asses here.

What's our achilles tendon? Is it Big Oil and the power of lobbyists? Is it bad inheritance from shortsighted administrations? Past or present presidential ties to the Saudi power families? Something else?

**Jack** · 03-15-2007, 08:22 PM

I think a major ROOT cause is *OUR* societal continued insistence on such vehicles that use that product in large quantities...

Of course there are a multitude of reasons....and Big Oil, like Big Pharma, like Big Anything, can easily be accused of *any* self-interest conspiracy to (gasp) make a profit (double gasp).....

Of course the power of the lobbyists, various Petroleum interests---don't forget the power of the UAW and THEIR vested interests in status quo...

I include the environmental lobby as well....why can't we build newer better refineries? Why can't we rely on the relative safety of domestic drilling rather than monster tankers subject to accident and pirate activity? How many would it take in sensitive areas that somehow sprung a leak to make a horrid mess?

Should I go on, or have you heard all this before?

self interest is pretty much where most of the world operates....

Undoubtedly you know the stories of Firestone and GM buying up the LA bus and trolley mass transit companies in the 1920s & 30s, and jettisoning in favor of fleets of new buses, trucks, etc....

I've been disappointed in spite of promising alternative energy sources we continue to suck the Big Oil teat....

Hydrogen? I'm all for it, and there are some wonderful prototypes.
I just read an article on the Toyota Prius (whatever) for it's manufacture's rated life of the TWO engines (100,000 miles) compared to the Hummer (300,000) --when you factor in the ecological and transportation costs of the nickle for the batteries and the round-the-globe shipping/manufacturing energy costs....ends up costing MORE per mile than that Hummer.....