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JohnnyMM, you nailed the real issue behind our energy problems exactly. But what you missed is the "entitlement" problem. The large, very wealthy corporations who are currently making obscene profits off providing energy resources to the United States absolutely believe they're ENTITLED to keep doing so. They're the new "welfare queens" but, unlike government programs over which we have some control, they get to charge us whatever level of private taxes they like to keep them in their "welfare Cadillacs", since we can't do without their product.
They are and will continue to use their massive profits to buy (oh, I'm sorry, "lobby") politicians to do things their way, but the fact is, as stated weeks ago by Andrew Leonard in a previous article, using currently-available technology, we could convert to suppling all the energy needs of the U.S. with photo-voltaic cells, wind power, etc. within twelve years. All that's required is that we start the conversion process.
Within twelve years, "peak oil" could be rendered irrelevant to the US economy and, as an added bonus, a group of very wealthy and powerful people who have done everything in their power to keep sucking maximum resources out of the rest of us while setting up bogus groups of bought and paid for "scientists" to lie to us about how they're destroying the planet in the process, would have the rug pulled completely out from under them.
What's not to like? I say we start in January 2009!
