Salon.com News | The gushing truth: "If you believe in that vision, stop reading here. That vision will not happen. America will never -- repeat, never -- be energy independent. America is such a major energy user and the energy market is so complex that we can never be independent. America simply sucks up too much oil (25 percent of world production), too much natural gas, and too much coal to ever cut itself off from the global market. The price for these commodities is set by global market forces like booming economies in China and India, and by the ever-increasing energy needs of citizens everywhere to power their cars, fax machines, computers and air conditioners.

In short, there's no silver bullet when it comes to energy. Pretending that there is only obscures the magnitude of the problem. And that problem is enormous. Hydrocarbons of all types are becoming harder to find and more expensive to produce. And more people are vying for the resources that remain. Domestic oil production has been falling since the early 1970s and no matter how large the subsidy or tax break to domestic drillers, that trend cannot be reversed. Given our current energy consumption, the idea that we can mine enough domestic crude to meet our demand is simply fallacious."

(Via Salon.)