Lane, There will be no Nobel Peace prizes for you, how can you blaspheme such a Liberal pagan ritual as earth day.

Errrrrr - don't forget JC Bell. UNLIMITED oil without drilling as long as we have the ability to grow anything. Add to that the side issue of bankrupting OPEC and there is really no downside!

Lane:

The liberal whackos are ruining everything.

Lane:

Congratulations!

This post has earned featured post status on the Silent Majority group in ActiveRain.

Hugh - I know that I am blaspheming the AlGore...  I'm ok with that. 

Simon - I'm not on the bio-fuels bandwagon... except bio-diesel from used cooking oil.  

Bill - Thanks for the feature.  I think that for the most part, people just hear one side of the story and assume it must be true... the Sierra Club wouldn't lie, right?

Lane - great post. If we could just utilize what we currently have while exploring alternative fuels sources we would be in good shape. Unfortunately we are prevented from utilizing our own resources by the very people who would sell us out to our enemies in a heartbeat. If only more people could see and understand this data.

Earth Day. A religious holiday for liberals.

Those are nice stats. i have seen them before. We must get some elected leaders who will work for us on this one.

Gene - Until more people make noise, those that do make the noise will control the argument.

Kevin - While I appreciate the idea behind Earth Day, I think that many are a bit misguided.  

Lane- I read the other day that prior to WWII Japan got 90% of its oil from..................... The United States!  Great post makes me think the congress will stand in the way of JC Bell when he gets things going.

Hi Lane, I was born and raised in South Louisiana. I know for a fact that from the early 80's on all the big oil companies where doing to save their offshore leases was drill{ which was required} then cap. Still is happening today. Shale oil is another big mystery. When I was into heavy construction diesel was much cheaper than gasoline for the simple fact that it takes less money to refine. { only 1 step away from kerosene } Now it is more expensive than priemium gas. And Diesel is what brings the goodies to market,go figure.

Larry - I wouldn't be shocked.  In fact, I think that one of the reasons we were attacked was because we started shutting off their supply... we needed it. 

K&R - Here is perhaps the best article I've seen to explain the issues facing diesel.  Csaba Csere in Car & Driver.  Here is a quote from the very end which sums up the problem quite nicely:

Al Mannato, a fuel-issues manager at API, explains that oil refineries tend to fall into two categories: catalytic cracking and hydrocracking. Most U.S. refineries are set up for catalytic cracking, which turns each barrel of crude oil into about 50-percent gasoline, 15-percent diesel, and the remainder into jet fuel, home heating oil, heavy fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gas, asphalt, and various other products. In Europe and most of the rest of the world, refineries use a hydrocracking process, which produces more like 25-percent gasoline and 25-percent diesel from that barrel of oil. So the rest of the world is already maximizing diesel production. In fact, despite using a refining strategy that minimizes the production of gasoline, Europe still ends up with too much of the stuff, so it exports it to America—about one of every eight gallons of gasoline that we consume.

Meanwhile, Americans are already using most of the diesel fuel that our refineries produce, so if sales of diesel cars take off, keeping the diesel flowing here will put further demands on tight worldwide diesel supplies and probably cause the price to rise even more. Our oil industry could, of course, start converting its refineries from catalytic to hydrocracking and start producing more diesel and less gasoline.

Doing so—and here’s the Catch-22—would reduce the output of gasoline and likely increase its price. Moreover, such a switch, Mannato explains, amounts to a major refinery change that would take 5 to 10 years to accomplish. Building some new hydrocracking refineries would add diesel capacity without squeezing gasoline supplies, but due to their nearly universal unpopularity, there hasn’t been a new refinery built in America since 1979.

There are a lot of reasons, but this is the most systemic.

Earth Day - I remember celebrating that way back in elementary school. Then when you speak of the oil industry - there is so much to comprehend to make sense of it all. I liked the stats you posted, very informational post! - Carla

Lane, did you know Dem's and Republicans are trying to pass a 1 Trillion tax for global warming? 

Carla - Too many people try to simplify their oil arguments... and they are usually the same people that have issues with Bush because he isn't "nuanced" enough for them.  This is a complicated issue, and can't be boiled down to a slogan. 

Missy - And it wouldn't affect the countries that are creating more pollution (China, India, etc.)