Are you willing to have a drill operation within 5 miles of your house? Are you willing to tear down the areas surrounding the Villages, basically "landlocking" it and polluting the water, so that you can afford gas in your car, because there's a prime drilling spot RIGHT THERE?

Are you willing to tell your family "nope, can't come down, we're moving again" because yet another oil company has decided to drill and the CDD and the county has given all the appropriate permits (for a hefty profit)?

Are you willing to have more bobcats, alligators, bears, and wild boars hanging out on YOUR front porch because the oil companies had to clear out the wildlife preserves to get the drilling machines in there?

I know I'm not willing. I'm not willing to see people who live off the land that they love, be forced out by oil companies with their billion dollar budgets to buy themselves emanant domain papers and force the landowners out.

There is enough oil to last. There is no shortage. The oil companies are recording record profits, because they know they can. We refuse to stop using it, and so they will continue raking in the cash. If we reduce our use of it, then they'll have to lower the prices, or else they'll price themselves out of business.

I haven't seen or heard of any US oil companies selling their product at a discount to the market price, in order to help its "suffering" population.
Ever.
Nothing to do with energy independence.
You honestly believe US oil would sell at $50 when the market is buying at $100?
Get real!

Very informative post!

Those environmental "goof balls" are the reason that people in the US are breathing better air and drinking cleaner water and living longer (just one of many reasons) than in say 1940.

Yes, it is, I never said it wasn't, but thank you.

What I said was pipelines have leaks and spills (Keystone already has) and if it happens in this country, WE get to pay for it.

Am I being unclear or are you just trying to be hard to get along with?

My reference to les demand was over the past 2 years when people were staying home because of the pandemic. Now, that people are starting to go back to work demand is picking up but slowly. It is estimated that demand was down to 1/2 of the pre-pandemic demand for the past two years. That resulted in gas price dropping a lot (down to around $2.00/gal or less). Now, demand is spicing up quickly, the sanctions on Russia are impacting supply (worldwide) and oil companies are making historic profits (so, not highly motivated to increase production).

The same way WE get to pay for it if there is a truck or rail accident (which happen more often)...

Personally, I'd want to go with the safer method of transporting the oil...

The last part is true. But, if a significant % of working people commuted by bike or walked to work (not counting pleasure walking or biking) - then by the law of supply and demand.......demand for diesel or gasoline would go down and the price of fuel would decrease. Perhaps now would be a good time to devise a way to motivate commuters to commute by bike. Note that many think that there is some amount (who knows how big?) of "price gouging" going on in the final price of gas at the pump.

Yet prices rose over the past year+ (since November of 2020, well before Putin invaded Ukraine) even when there was less demand...

Gas prices in 2019 (before the pandemic and before the drop in demand) were about $2.50/gallon. Yet, once the pandemic hit, the only dropped a bit (to just over $2.20) during 2020. They did drop as the year progressed to under $2.00/gallon in late October/early November of 2020.

They went up over $1.00/gallon (during the peak of the pandemic and lockdowns) from November 2020 thru February 2022. (which is counter to your explanation that they should be lower due to less demand).

Once the Ukraine invasion began, they went up another $1.00+/gallon...

So to answer your question.. Your response was crystal clear. It was just incorrect...

People biking/walking to work would not even show up as a blip on the radar of gas usage...

Personally, I was charge Canada's oil company a fee to cover clean up expenses, since almost all of the oil intended to go through to pipeline is destined overseas - it will go to the gulf, and be loaded onto ships and sold elsewhere.

Even if we consumed 100% of the pipelines oil it would amount to about 3% of our consumption. So, we take all the risk, we enjoy virtually no benefits, and Canada laughs all the way to the bank.

I completely agree in the short term. In the long term (as in new cities, etc) then it can make a difference. Maybe. But American's LOVE their 1000 mile range SUVs getting 25mpg that they drive back and forth 15 miles to work, and are not likely to give them up.

Better battery technology is being developed right now so that in the near future solar, wind, and tide energy will make the US and much of the world....."energy independent". We just have to live long enough to see it.

Fuel prices are high because of the law of supply and demand. Supply is now low so prices are high. Supply is low for many reasons. One is the purposeful keeping of supply low AKA "price gouging" at various points along the supply chain. Saudi Arabia is purposefully NOT raising supply. And Nato and Russia/China are virtually at war and possibly beginning WW3. Wars and the threat of wars always raise the price of a barrel of oil because of future supply unpredictability. Farmers are not able to plant wheat in the Ukraine so the future price of wheat is up. All goods must be transported, so there will be price increases in everything now and for the foreseeable future.

Correct, beware of "predatory capitalism". AKA price gouging.