Unless you are, say, a family with oil ties to Saudi Arabia, the headline probably scared you. 

I will go on record by saying that although I am not happy with the oil prices going up, it may indeed be the best thing for America in the long term. 

No, not for any environmental save-the-platypus reasons — just old-fashion we-need-to-be-self-sufficient reasons. 

• We burn 25 percent of the world’s oil but only have 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves — see a problem yet? 

• We cannot continue to rely on other countries for our energy (or food or supplies or insert just about anything here). 

• China and India’s energy demands are expected to double by 2030 (they would then import more oil than the U.S. and Japan combined).

Yeah, who cares…that is 20 years from now. Well, I don’t think oil is trending down, so just imagine it takes the next 20 years to get to $46.23 per gallon. My guess is you will be sacrificing a few more things than a weekly outing to the movies (tickets will be $21.00 each by then). 

Please don’t send me an e-mail about Ethanol being the answer. It takes approximately 123 gallons of gas to get 100 gallons of Ethanol — how did you think they harvested and transported the corn anyway? 

Wake up! We are the Saudi Arabia of coal. Let’s get going and finding efficient ways to refine it, up the mileage on our cars, and be self-sufficient. 

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