It's guaranteed to be heard multiple times almost every political cycle, and especially last night: "We're gonna make America energy independent!"
Would someone PULEEEEEEZE debunk this myth once and for all? Unless you have a nationalized energy industry like..um say...Venezuela or, um...Saudi Arabia, IT JUST AIN'T HAPPENIN!!!
For any presidential candidate to come out and even consider "Energy Independence" as a viable campaign strategy, they're admitting that they think the majority of voting Americans are idiots and...sometimes, I think they're not far off the mark.
The only way we currently can become "Energy Independent" is for our solar and wind energy efforts to outstrip our national consumption by more than anyone can imagine due to our obsolete and inefficient energy distribution network to the point that voltage trickles across our borders. That ain't happenin anytime soon.
Fact of the matter is that our petroleum/gas/coal energy prices are due to the demands of the WORLD-WIDE MARKET!. Venezuela and Saudi Arabia can set their domestic price per gallon of gasoline artificially at $0.27-$0.60/gallon because they CONTROL their domestic petroleum industry. Their citizens get what they need and the GOVERNMENTS sell the surplus at international market prices...er...um $4.00/gallon+.
WE, on the other hand, have a "free market" petroleum/gas/coal industry which means that WE, as American citizens, compete against every other swinging dick in the world on the free market to fill up at the gas pump. Go ahead and build that frikken Canadian oil sands pipe-line...it's just transporting the oil sands oil to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico so it can be transported to the world-wide market. WHAT DON'T YOU GET?!?!?
Fact of the matter is, when the US economy is on the upswing as are other growing economies throughout the world (such as India and China), we are competing for the same finite resources. That means if Chinese are willing to pay $4.00/gallon then we will have to also. The other sad fact is that in addition to that bottom level price, many consumers in industrialized nations are paying twice what we pay or more. The only redeeming quality behind that is that their focus is on energy efficiency and promoting alternative energy resources, it's built into their economies, they've developed energy efficient systems and autos and are actively seeking to reduce consumption. LOL!! NOT US!
HEY YOU GOP BROOMSTICKS/HAYSEEDS, there is NO SUCH THING AS ENERGY INDEPENDENCE in our free-market system. Build the damn pipe-line and pollute our nation-wide countryside so we can deliver Canadian oil-sands petroleum to the refineries to ship to the world market!
Why, oh why, doesn't anyone like Rachel, Chris or anyone explain this SIMPLE economic equation. There is no such thing as "ENERGY INDEPENDENCE" until we nationalize our oil/gas/coal industries. You really want the other guys to win?