Oil Jumps Above $140 A Barrel And How To Fix It

This story at Yahoo News is very appropriate to begin our series on energy, and helps lead into Part 1: Why We Must Drill Here.

Oil futures shot above $140 Thursday after OPEC's president said crude prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production. The advance raised the likelihood that gasoline prices would also extend their advance, and that prices of goods and services throughout the economy would also keep rising.

Light, sweet crude crossed the $140 level minutes before the New York Mercantile Exchange closed Thursday, then retreated slightly to settle up $5.09 at a record $139.64. In after-hours electronic trading, prices rose as high as a record $140.39.

Oil's latest milestone came as Chakib Khelil, president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer. Khelil also said prices will decline later in the year, and aren't likely to reach $200 a barrel.

Khelil joins a long list of forecasters who have made bold oil price predictions this year. Each new forecast, such as Goldman Sachs' recent prediction that prices could rise as high as $200, causes a jump in prices as speculative buyers are drawn into the market.

It is this speculation that has been driving this market for quite sometime, and will not stop until, the market realizes that we are serious about energy independence. If we are serious, then tomorrow morning the President, and the Leaders of the House and Senate would have a joint news conference, at which they would announce that energy independence is not only a "someday" goal, but a real goal.

This would be started by making our energy independence a defense matter, and beings National Defense supersedes everything else, it would get the proper attention. We need to announce that not only will there be drilling off our shores and in ANWR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge) with an Apollo type committment to be up and pumping, not in 10 years, but in 3, with all necessary red tape and regulations bypassed to make this happen, and complete energy independence in 10 years. Then in the next sentence the biggest announcement of all would come, and that would be that All Oil Companies operating in the United States and its' "properties" will be Nationalized immediately, and all assets would become part of the National Defense~Energy Department, which would manage all aspects of this drilling and utilization of oil resources for the benefit of the citizens of the United States, as a "public utility". I know this is socialistic and radical, but either we are going to do "everything", to become energy independent, or we are going to let the politicians, and the oil companies continue to screw us!! Hell, just the psychological impact on the world markets would temporarily reduce oil prices~IF they thought we were serious with becoming energy independent within 10 years, and then took the necessary steps to make it a reality.

There will be a need for extraordinary expenditures, again as a FDR type infrastructure project, and the Manhattan Program all rolled into one, but in the end it will benefit us all. We will need to cut red tape and corners on solar, wind, coal, biofuels,hydroelectric,hydrogen, wave, and of course nuclear power to acheive this, and would require not only fission reactors (preferably the CANDU~canadian design~ for their ability to use natural uranium), as well as a full out effort to acheive nuclear fusion for the ultimate in power if successful.

Over the next several posts we shall look at each type of energy, and the pros and cons of its' use, but because we are a oil based economy, we shall look at aspects of the oil industry, and what can be done to utilize its' full potential, with the biggest benefit for us, while we refine and expand other energy sources.

So please read the full story at the link below, and stop by tomorrow for Part 1: Why We Must Drill Here!! Thank You!!

link to full story