It is sad that there are so many like 'guest', who are willing to believe ANY rumor, lie or conspiracy theory if it helps support their basic distrust of government. I am assuming that 'guest' never even tried to absorb carefully presented material from Q, a professional in the field, before stating that "oil is a renewable resource". As I have noted before, ONE guy is largely responsible for that myth, and his theories are NOT accepted by 99% of those who are qualified to assess the idea. Oil as a limited, temporary resource has NOT "been thoroughly debunked".

ALL possible sources of energy should be explored...even those which can only be utilized in a limited, local way. Wind, solar, tidal, ethanol.... Every little bit helps..

And if we'd seriously do something about population growth, we'd automatically make progress on energy consumption.

I would HATE to see the oil shale areas seriously exploited, as that involves enormous amounts of fragile land dug up.