Summary of Energy Independence

       For decades amongst decades, politically the talk about oil and energy independence has been a significant topic for Americans, and a very heartfelt one at that. A lot of people in the U.S. find themselves asking this one particular question, "Why don't we take advantage of the oil resources we have in America and exclude ourselves from this middle east reliance, which will presumably hurt us with outrageously high prices of gas". It is a very good question but it generally is an uneducated one. Our society has obtain such an intolerance for patience, it has evolved to an "act now" attitude and we exclude ourselves from researching the facts and we end up making an irrational decision. So we leave out the pieces in which this controversy is created by, including: OPEC, volatility of oil, and the cost of retrieving domestic oil. In an article I read titled "International Oil Security: Problems and Policies" the Author Michael Toman talks statistics and shows that 60% of the United States oil is imported and 45% of it comes from OPEC." Many Americans have of OPEC but really don't have a solid understanding. OPEC is essentially a collusion of several countries, which coordinates and unifies the petroleum policies of its Member Countries and ensures the stabilization of oil markets  in order to benefit the supplier and consumer somewhat equally. Before OPEC, countries would duke it out with fuel prices. They would continually lower their price until they were almost making zilch profit, so finally  they were like "Hey, enough is enough, lets cometogether". This is why OPEC has such a great power because they control the majority of the world's oil and are able to sustain a relatively low price compareably to an indvidual market. Another problem with energy independence is the cost retrieving of domestic oil. Let's say america had an unlimited amount of oil it wouldnt have any value becasue right now we're seeing in ANWR and the Bakken formation, that for these deep wells of oil our technology isnt advanced enough yet for domestic oil to be profitable. Primarily for the U.S. to make any money on it our prices would have to be around $4.50. A price which is obviously to high for today's market and even if we could sale for a much more reasonable price, OPEC has such a dominance in the oil market that they will just lower their price and push us away from production. So a lot people think that if we just rigorously drilled our oil reserves it would create cheaper gas prices, but they don't take the other components into consideration, they just toil. So the question is if we cant do that then what do we do. We definitely need to pursue fuel economy and alternative fuels and not at it as a transcendental or liberal movement, but for the best of interests for our country and our financial needs. Really try to be an innovator in the sense of utilizing bio fuels, hybrid vehichles, but also making vehicles in general more economic. In a blog called "Gas Prices and Smart Policies" dicusses credible propositions that would substantially lower gas prices for us in a different manner. Their sourcesThe National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), show statistics for what the requirements will be in 2025 including emissions and fuel economy for American vehicles, which if automotive companies increase their efficiency jsut 3% each year, in 2025 every single car will be getting 42 mpg. These are the types of steps we need to be taking towards the future.