There is a lot of talk about achieving energy independence. However so long as companies are free to trade is that really reasonable?

Lets say we curb demand through more efficient vehicles and the like or bring other things online. It would seem the result would be that the oil producers would simply lower their prices. Meaning people would use more gas again and we'd import that instead of producing energy through more expensive means here.

The only free trade ways I see to eliminate a foreign dependence on oil would be.

1. To get really lucky and develop energy that is cheaper to produce than oil that literally shoots out of the ground. Like a Mr. Fusion or something.

2. To subsidize local energy production so much that its cheaper on our markets than foreign oil even after they drop prices.

Sanctions won't really do it because oil is mostly a fungible good. Meaning that it's pretty much all the same. So if we saction Iran but China doesn't than Iran could just sell its oil to China (likely at a cheaper price), and we would then have to buy the more expensive oil that China would otherwise have bought.

Yes. Oil will eventually run very low this will bringon an onset of people looking for a cheaper way to get around and produce things. Once they switch over gas will get cheaper but even that will eventually rise in price and soon enough it will all be gone. The transition won't be smooth in any case but it can happen under a free market.

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Of course this assumes that if people wait till the last minute, they have enough fuel left to discover the next alternative.
Being that we aren't there yet, not for lack of trying, it's probably a good idea to get a head start rather than wait for supply to get so low that everyone panics.

Keep in mind... if there is not enough oil left to run industry or the economy... there is no alternative energy either.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Well. Ok. That is true. However I'm given to understand with the proven reserves out there that this will take a considerable amount of time.

Hmmmm. *pokes around*

Looks like there are about 1.3 trillion barrels in fairly easy to get at oil reserves. So at current production we'd last roughly 50 years. But I know they say demond is going up and as the easiest to get oil goes first it's only going to get harder to ramp up production.

Actually this is fairly interesting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

At any rate I'll recast my question. Could the free market produce energy independence in the couple decades we likely have before oil production hits the fan?

Free trade means that we get the cheapest source of energy possible. Energy independence would require much more expensive forms of energy. Most people who support energy independence don't actually want us to produce all of our energy by ourselves, they simply want to ensure that we are not entirely dependent on foreign sources so that we can have some measure of control over whether we have security over our energy source. Free trade and domestic production are the ways to go for us.

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"It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary"

-- Ludwig von Mises

It's just as much a possiblity for a free market to spawn alternative energy, perhaps more so than state run programs because there are massive profit incentives to produce a new source of energy. Of course this is totally unproveable and I'm basing my perspective on speculation and my own personal bias.

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Actually I think that IS what they mean. Or at least that we get extra energy from select sources as opposed to the free market.

We already have a fair bit of security in that we have the massive strategic oil reserve as well as a number of countries we could get oil from in larger amounts if we paid more.

Maybe only the most deluded fanatical brainwashed Neo-cons of all time...

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"It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary"

-- Ludwig von Mises

Why would free trade be bad for energy indepedence?

With free trade agreements, NAFTA in particular, the US has been able to secure preferential access to Canadian oil.

The US gets something like 35% of its oil imports from Canada, and this supply keeps going up and is never threatened.

Why you would want to abandon free trade and give up this guaranteed access is completely ridiculous. Your oil prices would sky-rocket and your main source would be unstable Middle-East countries if you scrapped free trade.

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill

Well I think the issue is... that energy independence is sort of contradictory to the doctrine of free trade.
In free trade, we should consider comparative advantage. The countries that best supply oil should supply oil. The countries that refine gasoline best should do so (note Iran is an oil exporter and gas importer).
Now granted some part of energy economy is local... but the oil comes from somewhere. The machines for alternative energy are built somewhere.

And the doctrine of free trade would hold that some areas specialize in this so that other nations can be freed to work on other things.

So the reality is that energy independence in and of itself is an idea that is saturated in protectionism.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside