I always hear about the fight to get free flowing oil reserves from other countries, generally speaking.

The way I see it, there's been tons of innovations around the world. I'm sure the reason it hasn't been replicated everywhere is that there are other considerations that maybe make these things an impossiblity at least right now.

I'm talking about people experimenting with algae, mushrooms, alternative means to energy that have been successful.

I'm sorry but I do notice that our united states is behind on everything while we're whining about oil.

Over the past 20 years we should have been working on alternatives and we should have already been doing this stuff. We should have already been doing things to make ourselves independent even though we rely on some resources.

We should have already been doing this.

Trump has ended several science programs, scientists already left in mass droves and with the rise of maga came the rise of anti intellectualism.

It's not other countries faults that we don't work nor invest in our own country. We could have been so good as a country, we would be able to even clear our national debt by changing a few things and yet we want to whine, demand things from others to just hand it over to us.

We should have already been working on things so it's a self inflicted bullet wound on our account.

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FreddieUK · 70-79, M

If there were viable alternatives to oil and gas (methane) then the oil companies would immediately either grab the patents or do everything they can to protect their investments and destroy the challenger. There is a conspiracy theory that it already exists and is being suppressed. I don't believe it, but it is on the plausibility scale.

SatanBurger · 36-40, F

@FreddieUK Well then we're pretty much doing everything to ourselves, got no right to complain about nothing.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@FreddieUK That's an old idea - all sorts of curious inventions allegedly surface, of which perhaps the oddest I have heard of was running a car on water, and no, not by steam-power.

I've never placed much credibility on it, partly because these ideas are often scientifically very weak, hardly worth either investing in or suppressing. Or they may work in theory but are not original, simply rehashes of ones lost in engineering history. You can't break the Laws of Physics!

Indeed, over the years the car manufacturers have worked hard to make their engines much more efficient - albeit prodded by regulations to do so - and more recently the oil companies have been investing in "renewable energy".

They do of course have a powerful motive, the knowledge that petroleum and natural-gas will run out sooner rather than later, with the remaining deposits becoming harder and costlier to find and exploit. Also as we see, some of the major ones are in politically very unhealthy regions, adding to the cost and complexity.

There are alternative fuel sources being investigated or even used, such as alcohol from plant material, or hydrogen; but examination shows they are less environmentally and economically sound than they seem.