Drill, baby drill

$36.00 oil. We'd be looking at bailing out Exxon if they had started. Not much said about it in the last few weeks.

in all those offshore (or even North Slope) locations is profitable at $36/brl. None.

So no more "drill, baby, drill".

No matter what the price of oil drops to, we should still insist on high mileage, hybrid, or electric (my favorite right now) vehicles. Because the price of oil will not stay at $36. Peak oil is still here, speculators overshot, and are now undershooting, the true price of the commodity (as influenced by the increase demand by the Chinese before, and now the global collapse of demand caused by the world wide depression now).

What if we had a $2/gallon tax on gasoline at the pump instead of a combined $.40-$.60? Such a price already had some impact on demand even before the stock market tanking.

Even if we turned a switch and all future cars were driven totally by wind/solar produced electricity, we still have the 250+M vehicles that are gasoline or diesel powered. It is going to be a long time for replacement.

I wish the Fed had some way to purchase and store this oil. It would do a lot for future stability as well as representing some revenue generation for the U.S. later down the line. It says something for the argument to release a portion of the Strategic Pet. Reserves when oil was $140/barrel. We could be refilling now with $40/barrel oil. Of course our energy dependency makes such an approach dangerous.