Dependency on Oil

Dependency on Oil

Over the past half a century, America's dependency on oil has increased. Now, America consumes comes mostly from foreign countries. In early 1980, three- quarters of the crude oil used in U.S refineries which came from America, however today that same percentage of oil has significantly changed. Less than half of the crude oil used in America's refineries today is produced domestically and 60 percent of oil import from foreign countries. The foreign oil is heavily used by automobile owners because we are very dependent on our cars to get us from one place to another place as Americans.

The average price of a barrel of oil has continuously increased which is nearly tripled from $23 to $60 in 2006. Before the gas price hit too high, no one was concerned where the oil came from and thought it was always there whenever we needed. Now, the demand of oil is very high that domestic production cannot sustain. So, we are forced to seek for oil from foreign countries like Middle East. It does affect our economy now. The price per barrel went high, so the price of gas is go up as well. To keep America competitive requires affordable energy. However, America is pretty much reliant on oil which is often imported from different parts of foreign countries. The best way to find solution of this problem is through technology. Under the bush administration, we have spent nearly tons of billion dollars to develop cheaper, cleaner and more reliable alternative energy sources.

To solve this problem, our government has come up with two different ways to decrease America's dependency on oil. One way is to increase amount of oil produced in United States. Another way to soothing on some of the government restrictions on oil drilling could help promote more production. Unfortunately, soothing on some of the government regulations in any industry could be very slow political process. The other way to decrease our dependency on oil is to find more alternative sources of energy.

Ethanol is one of the alternative energy sources which can reduce America's dependency on oil. Ethanol is an explosive substance that exits in small amounts in about one third of the gas sold in the United States. Many household vehicles have flex fuel that will run on gas which is up to 85% of ethanol. It also refined out of products like sugar or corn. America's ethanol production close to a million barrels a day and it exports is about to million barrels a month. This tremendous value adds to the oil and natural gas that exported for solid currency which is offset in a way what oil imports cost.