Exactly, then we can reduce our dependency on the ME to a fair degree, but after Japan, the Germans have effectively banned nuclear power generation, even though the Japanese plant is at least 2 generations behind the most current and withstood forces it was never intended to.
Far too much knee-jerking and hand-wringing by the idiots that we idiots let loose every 4-5 years to run the asylum!
Bringing it back to oil/fuel - I recall there being something which said speculators don't need to have the actual money to buy the oil they speculate on, just £100K or so.
In other words, for a small amount of real money, you can buy many many times that value in oil, and trade it.
No bloody wonder it's $120 instead of $40 or so.
Then again, I read something on the BBC website about Hydrogen FCs, and that it's very energy intensive to get to the state required for a fuel - that was back in 2008, I think.
Makes me think if you push the cost of crude oil up, then difference in the cost of R&D'ing hydrogen isn't as stark, so it becomes more appealing, etc.
So, cyncial manipulation of the value of oil to artificially close the gap between it and other options?
I know China gets blamed for a lot of the price hike - there's an element of reality about that, but it's not all down to the former 3rd world countries like them and India now growing out of that status.
And it's not even down being past peak-oil - there's at least 2 centuries worth of oil available, which whilst more difficult to extract, will be overcome by the oil companies as a matter of course.
