Dems to announce energy plan

I woke up this morning to Fox News talking about the possibility of $200/barrel oil, $7/gallon gas and the revelation that the Democrats were going to unveil a plan deal with these possibilities. Apparently ther are no real details yet but according to Fox the plan will not authorize-

1. More Exploration
2. More Refineries
3. A Gas Tax Holiday

It may suspend the ethanol mandate and deposits in the strategic petroleum reserve. I didn't hear anything about oil shale or coal to gas.

Given those restrictions how do you bring oil prices down? You don't really.
You can cap prices. That will just lead to speculation in other markets and a continuing shortage of oil here and you can use confiscatory taxes against the oil companies. That will just lead to a slow down in production and higher prices. Finally you can ration. That leads to black markets, crime, and higher prices.

It's really to late to do anything about prices in the short term but the US needs to get realistic about energy needs. For vehicles carbon based fuels are the most energy efficient so the majority of our fossil fuels should be directed there. Including oil shale and coal to gas. Electricity can be generated efficiently from a number of alternate sources efficiently and there use should be greatly expanded. (if it was me I would say project future growth for the next 50 years then double that amount of capacity) We also need to probably triple the electrical distribution infrastructure. That way as we bring more alternate power online we can move it efficiently. That lets us start using things like electric cars and electric heat more cheaply.

OK there you go the Chad Plan for Energy Independence.