I have documented in other posting how ethanol actually uses more fossil fuel in its production then it saves by supplementing it in gasoline.
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The best forms of alternative sources lie in how they are performing on the open markets. As $$$ talks and BS walks. No one is going to invest in alternative sources that loose $$. Most all your "green" companies are loosing their ass on wall street. Many are down as much as 90%. While ethanol only survives because of the massive government subsidies and mandates. The exception to this is SOLAR. Many solar stocks are up well over 500% in just a couple years time. The technology is very promising, with the vast improvements that have been made in solar panels. The grand idea with solar is that you can set up a massive solar field in the middle of the Arizona/Nevada desert. The estimates say that it would not require all to much desert land to create a solar field large enough to produce enough electricity to literally power the entire country. The big difficulty would be transferring the electricity, as you have tons of loss when you transfer electricity long distances. That is where the whole concept of super conductors could come into play. With super conductors you use a gas like liquid nitrogen to super cool your transmission lines (200-300 degrees below zero). When you do this you have virtually no loss in transmission, as atoms actually pair up, and flow with next to no resistance in the super cool state.
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All that technology is very high tech, and still in the theoretical stages, but represents one of the many exciting advancements of our time. If I were a betting man (wink), I'd bet that solar with the aid of super conductor technology, will be the biggest energy innovation of our time.

i guess i did misinterpret what you meant, however i did not misinterpret what you said;) the energy is not renewable, but the source is....

I can control what I use, you can control what you, use but we can't control what our neighbors use. That is also true of countries. If the United States cuts its consumption 20%, the rest of the world will simply use up the excess and the price will rise. But, if we increase supply while cutting consumption due to conservation and new energy sources, then the price will drop or hold relatively steady.
We can’t just wait for a technological solution that is not ready. We don’t know when a new alternative energy source will be available. The ones we have don’t seem to do the job. For proof, just look at past articles in the Gazette about ethanol plants and wind farms and all the opposition that nearby residents put forth. Have any solar panels on your roof? Do your neighbors? How many ecologically harmful batteries are we going to need for windless days and nighttime? How do we charge our electric cars if not on our home circuits increasing fuel consumption at electric power plants?
Drilling for more oil is a practical solution. Depending on “green” energy is pie in the sky.

For what it's worth. No energy is renewable. Once again, energy is just changed from one form to another. You never create or destroy energy, you just transfer it from one form to another. It's an odd concept, but it is mathematically proven. The great mathematician Rudolf Clausius, was one of the 1st to detail this amazing law of physics.

billnewbie:
You post basically asks the question I like to pose to big government liberals, and that is "What does government produce?". They love to get in the way of these big "evil" companies who actually PRODUCE something, and make lives for millions of Americans BETTER. Companies who's "obscene" profits are being TAXED, and allowing them (the government) to spend insane $$$$'s on endless social programs, and pork projects.
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It really just amazes me how people think some slick talking government idiot who sits on their ass all day patting them self on the back, thinks they know more about energy policy then those who have worked in the field all their life.
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If you really want something screwed up, just let the government get hold of it. I mean really, what have they ever got into which they have NOT screwed up? Can you honestly imagine what transportation, and gas prices, would be like if the oil companies were nationalized? (which has been proposed by some in congress)

thekid you may misinterpreted what I meant. I meant that the energy that is produced isn't renewable. The energy that is produced is used up there for it isn't renewable. The source maybe renewable by what it produces isn't.

bill: let me just say im not pro or anti drilling. whatever is decided is fine with me. my life wont be affected. how far off from 20 years and .2 percent could they be?? i mean if they are way off is it 5 years and 2% off the production?? either way its not like at some point were all gonna see the gas drop a buck a gallon cuz we drilled offshore. NEVER. its your common supply/demand issue. we can increase our supply, but until we LEARN to reduce the demand we will be chasing our own tail..so to speak.
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whybesad: there is such a thing as renewable energy sources. its energy generated from natural resources. wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass. and of course for what its worth, the best option for biomass(instead of using our food) is hemp. www.hemp4fuel.com

Actually that is not true.
The 1st law of thermodynamics states that:
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"Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another."
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So basically no energy is renewable or non renewable for that matter. That's just all BS political spin as usual. Energy is merely changed from one form to another.

What energy source is renewable? Once the energy is used up it's used up.

Thekid3477:
The author of this opinion piece, Mark Weisbrot, the co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research is a partisan. The very tone of his opinion piece is partisan. That does not mean he is a liar. Partisans have, however, been known to quote only facts that support their positions. This quote,”According to the EIA, the total amount of oil that this drilling would produce at peak 20 years from now would be less than 0.2 percent of world production. This would be too small to have any significant effect on the price of oil or gasoline, according to the EIA.” I believe, refers to proven reserves in those areas Mr. Weisbrot would have us leave alone. The “facts” of proven reserves do not take into consideration potential reserves. The Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy deals in production figures and proven reserves and not speculative potential. That doesn’t seem to be their job according to the information available on their web site.
Who is it that is willing to risk billions of dollars looking for oil in environmentally sensitive places? The greedy oil companies whose only mission is to make lots of money, right? If there isn’t enough oil there to make any difference then why do they want to waste so much money trying to find oil? I wouldn’t, would you? Who is in a better position to know how much oil is out there, a Washington D.C. think tank co-director, or the people who are willing to put up their own money to find out?
Am I the only one who has noticed that over the course of the summer, those who oppose more drilling have modified their time frame argument for this new oil reaching the market in 5 to 7 years to 10 to 20 years as in this opinion piece? By October the estimate may be 30 to 50 years at this rate.

"speculators will assume there will be a lot of oil in the future and the price of oil will drop"
-0.2%- Two tenths of one percent of the world supply is not "a lot" of oil, and it wouldn't phase the speculators for a second.

It's kind of a big DUH all around. Oil is not a reneweable, unlimited resource.
Humans are making more of themselves, building more buildings and cars- and that's not just in the USA.
Isn't is obvious we need to drill AND pursue alternative energy sources? We also need to re-evaluate our current city planning nethods; we have gotten away from centrally-located family businesses and now rely on big box stores on the outskirts of town.

so i guess wed be halfway to being .2 percent better off:)

billnewbie according to the article and EIA, if we had started 10 years ago, wed only be 10 years away from '.2 percent of world production'.

How much better off would we be now if we had started ten years ago when it was said then that more drilling wouldn't help for ten years?

Ten years is a long time, but it is not forever. Did it ever occur to anyone that we may need that oil even more in ten years than we do now? If we get started now, we may be very glad that we made this decision. If we do nothing, we will only be left with regret.

Are you sure that it is in response to President Bush's announcement?

"Sen. McCain’s proposal...would take about a decade to produce any oil."
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You're forgetting about the oil speculators. If the plan goes through and they start drilling, speculators will assume there will be a lot of oil in the future and the price of oil will drop. That's exactly what's been happening over past week. Ever since Pres. Bush announced his plan to remove the ban on offshore drilling, the price of oil has been dropping.

http://www.nextenergynews.com This site will give you insight to what other Countries are doing.

A sensible article with reasonable solutions. Are only action to cause change will be to conserve energy and fuel. That will make the prices go down while we get into alternative fuels and change some regulations I have reorganised my driving. Only do necessary driving. Shop for groceries twice a month and organize menus. My gas is now on a budget. Don't go on shopping sprees cause I can't afford it now. I am sure the business are suffering from this. We must insist on Alternative fuels. Large cities will be helped by mass transit. And when gas prices go higher even you will ride the bus.

Mass transit really works in Janesville. Big buses driving no one anywhere.