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Let's suppose that we do indeed want to drill all that oil. Is now the best time to be doing it?
Say it costs X dollars to build out an oil drilling, transporting, and refining infrastructure that can take advantage of the North American continent's untapped oil reserves.
If we instead spent those X dollars on building manufacturing capacity for renewable energy plants and high-efficiency cars, the supply-demand dynamic of the American energy market would be altered at least as much — and far more favorably for consumers. The oil would still be there, and we would need it less.
The only people for whom that sounds like a bad deal are oil companies that would rather throw a tantrum and cry "don' wanna, don' wanna" than accept that it's their bedtime. So are we going to spoil them some more, or send them upstairs without their dinner?
