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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (6132)	3/13/2009 9:20:16 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 86350

Personally my assessment is any decline in US imports (which isn't going to happen but I'm talking theoretically) would occur over many years. Years in which demand in the "developing world" and even in the producing countries is going to be growing rapidly. So our decline would be more than compensated by growth elsewhere. given that other Western countries would probably follow our lead. Nobody's going to follow our lead. In fact, what you propose is similar to what European countries are doing. Except that European countries aren't so stupid as to discourage their own domestic production like we do (in that respect I wish we were wise enough to follow that example). You don't see north sea countries banning offshore drilling. Or European countries banning drilling anywhere. That means oil companies will invest far fewer dollars in oil exploration, which means fewer oil jobs and capital expenditures, which is precisely what is meant by oil industry withering. As long as people use energy, good sources of energy like oil and natural gas will be in demand and fetch a price. Its a cyclical industry but demand isn't gonna go away. If we use less, someone else will.