On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:49:58 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:

Some add-ons to your proposals:
Reducing petroleum dependence and demand in these ways will also have
the effect of reducing petroleum prices, which will help our economy by
reducing shipping costs for goods since they all ultimately are shipped
by semi at some point and EV semis won't be practical for some time.
This will also serve to lower the profits of unfriendly petroleum
friendly countries.

There are at least some who believe the petroleum dependence of the US
is the result of a secret agreement cooked up between Henry Kissinger
when he was acting as SoS and the Arab oil producing countries.

We....the US...will not develop our oil, but will buy it from
you....the Arab counties....as long as you....the Arab
counties....promise to keep oil sales denominated in dollars and to
reinvest some of your oil proceeds in US Government Treasury bills,
i.e., finance the public debt of the US.

This is theorized to be a part of a giant financial double-cross that
will be perpetrated against the Arab nations when the value of US
T-Bills eventually crashes to worthlessness.

Alaska is thought to have more crude the Saudi by persons of this
persuasion. I am sort of prone to agree with this theory of US oil
production. There are known reserves up there, and yet, nobody puts
any taps in the ground. Why?

Further, is oil a "fossil fuel" at all? Did all the dinosaurs go to
Saudi Arabia, die, get covered with sand, and turn into oil? I doubt
that. Oil is thought by many to be an abiotic resource created by
microbes living deep in the Earth's crust and seeping up close to the
surface in the various areas wherein oil is found. The Russians have
done many deep deep wells in Siberia which seems to give credence to
this theory of oil creation.

Oil may, in fact, be a non-depletable resource.
Dave