As gas prices reach record prices levels our politicians' “cure” is to clamor for windfall taxes to punish those greedy oil companies. Instead of recognizing looking at their own errors of past policies that have allowed us to increase our dependence on Saudi oil they would rather blame oil companies even though, as I have pointed out in a previous post, Exxon Mobil controls less than 1% of the world’s oil supply.
What could we have done? There is a laundry list but at a minimum here are two possible avenues.
- Use breeder reactors to produce nuclear power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
- Develop the tar sands in the Green River Formation which according to Wikipedia “contains the largest oil shale deposits in the world. The 213 billion tons of oil shale contain an estimated 2.38 x 1011m3 (1.5 trillion US barrels) of shale oil.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_Formation#Oil_shale See this publications for more detailed information on oil shale. http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2005/5294/pdf/sir5294_508.pdf
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