.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;}
Every so often I receive an urgent message from a guy who was always kind of spooky in high school, then went on to major in Conspiracy Theories with a minor in Spare Time.

Now, I will always remain in the market for a good John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy idea – if you were going to shoot somebody all by yourself, why would you wait until he was farther away? He obsesses on fresher topics, I’ll give him that; but the theories tend to crumble the minute you pick them up.

The latest missive he passed along was about the stifling of oil production in the United States. The original writer reports with an abundance of exclamation points that there’s enough oil under North Dakota, Montana and the Rocky Mountains to solve all of our energy problems.

“HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this!?” the message says. “Because the democrats, environmentalists and left wing republicans have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil.”

I don’t think we wackos are all that enthused about dependence on foreign oil. But we’re very much in favor of developing new sources of energy.

Yes, there are lots of people who are leery of drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for environmental reasons, but I didn’t know we were supposed to be worried about North Dakota. If we’re conspiring against that concept, we need more meetings and much better protest signs.

Reportedly, the number of wells drilled into the Bakken Formation in North Dakota increased to 457 in 2007 from 300 in 2006. Oil production rose to 7.4 million barrels from 2.2 million barrels. Some conspiracy.

Maybe the alarmed messenger is angry that we haven’t drained the Bakken more quickly, although that doesn’t seem like a problem, exactly.

But bringing up oil is harder than it looks. It has been reported that geologists’ estimates of the amount of oil actually recoverable from the Bakken have ranged from 50 percent down to 1 percent. Likewise, there’s more to getting oil out from under the Rockies than jacking them up and reaching inside.

Resistance from Democrats and environmentalists might not be the main problem. Technical problems might be the problem.

Anyway, the larger issue is whether we can come up with a more comprehensive and possibly more innovative plan for the future than “Drill, baby, drill.”

When you ask people what they want from the energy sector, they tend to say, “cheaper oil.” But something else will follow the Age of Oil, and we might as well start creating it now.

Author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said in a recent TV interview that when people in China tell him it’s their turn to develop without worrying about pollution – just like we did – he tells them to go right ahead. In the meantime, he says, he hopes that America will be developing all kinds of fantastic technology and products designed for clean energy usage.

When the folks in China have had enough of smog, acid rain and heavy metals, we’ll be there with order books in hand.

Now that’s a business plan. Maybe we haven’t made this clear, but many of us wackos are in favor of profit, too.

The Political Economy Research Institute claims that we can create two million American jobs by investing in clean energy technologies. We’re not talking about crippling our economy to keep tree-huggers happy.

The advent of the automobile devastated the buggy whip, harness and horseshoeing industries. But a fair number of opportunities arose for people who went into business making tires, engines, windshields, highways and so forth.

We could think big. Or we could just hope for the best and see how that works out.