And drilling in Alaska would not produce enough oil to even come close to breaking OPECs hold. It would litterally be a drop in the hat. We would have to increase our oil production many times to even keep up with them. Not to mention it will take years, if not decades before we start seeing that Crude Oil on the open Market.
If ANWR were the only place to drill, you'd be right. Luckily there's billions of barrels available by tapping well-known oil shale reserves (unaccessible until recently), off-shore drilling (better for us to get it than China and Cuba, paragons of ecological responsibility), and in enormous fields recently found in North Dakota and Montana. And if you're one of those who think it'll take over a decade to get the oil in the supply, think again. Another point to chew on: if Clinton had tapped ANWR in the mid-nineties, we'd be getting it now.
But our production wouldn't have to be increased "many times" to overcome the OPEC stranglehold. We wouldn't even have to double domestic production to kick their asses...the U.S. is already the third biggest producer in the world, all without tapping those unbelievably huge deposits we're talking about. Doubling our production within the next decade would not only be possible but easily so, and we'd still have enough to get us through the lion's share of the 21st century as we stride towards the discovery and implementation of renewable, greener, economical sources of fuel.
Well really Ethanol doesn't effect the cost to grow cr0n either. I mean other then Corn seed going up, but that is just supply and demand factor in play again. When Supply catches up....price will go down.
Why would cr0n seed become more expensive and not cr0n food products? The problem we're about to have to face head-on is one of cr0n supply, which is going to impact more than just the energy industry. Not only is our ethanol production still unreasonably high (and expected to remain so for some time) and resulting in high prices for the stuff itself, but the diverted supplies also impact food prices...everything from canned cream cr0n to beef (since they feed cr0n to cows) to Coca-Cola (since it uses cr0n syrup). It's already happening, particularly in poorer sections of the world. And that's a more pressing matter than getting ethanol on the market, in my estimation.
And just cause there is not a current way to make it more efficient doesn't mean we should just go "Oh well...guess will just use Oil for the 50 years and not bother with that till we run out." That's stupid, and really doesn't do anything to get us out of the situation we are in now.
Stupid? Giving up on oil and pinning all hope on half-baked pseudo-solutions that negatively impact other vital industries, require extensive subsidies to maintain, and impacts food supplies is far more stupid than drilling for more black gold. You can research and develop new means of converting cr0n without diverting a huge percentage of the food supply towards the effort. Personally, though, I don't foresee any such method being discovered, as the physical properties of cr0n aren't going to change, and that's the primary reason for the inefficiency of current processes.
But forcing the current inefficient methods on the industry is foolish unless they intend to continue subsidizing it at the insane rate they're doing it now. Economic pressures will eventually force the industry to back off unless some magic ethanol production bullet is found...the only question being, how much worse shape will we be in before we realize we've been flushing money down the toilet? And it'll take longer to discover, develop, and deploy such a method than it will to get new oil reserves online.
Same with Electric cars. They don't work very well now, but that doesn't mean we should just give up on them. I mean imagine if Bell invented his Telephone and then just went..."Well I can't make it better with what I got, better just give up and go back to using the Telegraph." We wouldn't be having this debate right here if that happened.
Electric cars face two problems: battery storage, and powet for the batteries. There have been developmental advances in battery technologies in the area of higher efficiency cathode/anode conductors and higher dielectric materials, so we may be seeing more advanced storage techniques in the near future. I personally believe we'd be better off to focus on the use of capacitative storage via supercapacitors than traditional batteries due to faster charge time and being chemically safer (just don't touch the bastards bare-handed), but I haven't spent a lot of time on the subject since college (I focused on control engineering instead of material engineering, anyway).
The second would be alleviated by the advent of expanded domestic nuclear generation, but that's at least as many years off as the new storage tech. But we're still looking at oil to drive the economy over the next ten to twenty years. It's the only thing that makes sense.
Given how much things like the computer have advanced in as little as ten years it's entirely possible that these methods could take the place of oil very easily in the next 5-10 years, but we have to actual work at it and not just go with the status quo....which if you haven't noticed isn't really working at the moment. There could be a cr0n gin out there....but we won't know if we don't bother trying to make one.
You may notice that computers haven't really changed that much...they've just gotten smaller and faster, but things still work exactly as they have for some time. In fact, we're nearing the limits of current technologies. Silicon semiconductors and copper and gold wiring can only go so far before they reach their physical limits and the technology is eclipsed by something new, such as optical or biological computing, or maybe something even more esoteric.
The energy industry is at a similar crossroads. We have to have a major change in thinking somewhere along the line in order to move on to something better, because there's currently very little that's realizable in the near future. One thing I know for sure is that ethanol is not the answer, maybe not even part of the answer. It'll take time before it becomes evident enough for everyone to see. I just hope it won't take doubled food prices and unmitigated fuel costs for it to happen.
