I guess I should have been more clear. We need to reduce our overall demand for oil. We don't buy any oil directly from Iran but since it is a global commodity any demand we create that pushes up prices benefits all oil producing countries including Iran.
I'm not an environmental wacko or anything like that but I am an engineer and I see a problem that we can engineer our way out of. I'd rather pay these high energy prices to a domestic supply. At the current prices many other technologies are viable. Nuclear, Wind, Hydro, Oil Shale, Oil Sands, etc. The independent companies aren't willing to invest in enough research or manufacturing capability for the fear of oil prices dropping and making alternative energy a more expensive supply again.
I think long term the prices will remain high regardless of where the energy comes from. If that is the case we should do what is necessary to become energy independent. I hate big government but if we invested half as much in technology development as we do protecting our oil supply in the middle east we would have invented batteries that are the size of a cell phone and can power a freight train by now <g>.
If you look at the big programs in the past that NEEDED to be done we have been remarkably successful in a short period of time. Manhattan project, Moon mission (still the only country to have put anybody on the moon). Both in less than a decade. Both projects required a huge development in new materials and technologies.
OK, I'll get off the soapbox for a while.
Kevin
Oh by the way when will the shipment of cheap gas hit the streets in Harlem?
