[KingM]

With the price of oil topping $70 per barrel and gas over $3.00 a gallon, the calls are coming fast and furious to shoot for American independence. Advocates point to everything from ethanol to conservation to increased exploration and production on American lands. Ethanol is not ready to take over a significant portion of our liquid fuels consumption and increased domestic production faces the twin challenges of environmental concerns and a possible lack of sufficient resources.

The weakness of conservation is what is known as Jevons Paradox. English Economist William Jennings Jevons found that conservation efforts drive up the overall use of a resource by making that resource relatively less expensive. In the case of oil, a doubling of the efficiency of cars would make oil only half as expensive per vehicle mile driven, therefore fuel costs would remain low even if the price increased.

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