The price of gasoline is influenced HEAVILY by speculation. Therefore, if the speculators believed that the U.S. was going to take advantage of what the U.S. has in fossil fuels, the price would dramatically go down . Don't believe the media hype that it would take 10-15 years---the oil is ready now, all we have to do is pick it up! There is oil from Canada, from the mid-west of the U.S. ready to be transported. T here are so many other products that come from oil, including crayons, plastics, heating oil, jet fuel, kerosene, synthetic fibers and tires. The oil refining process starts with a fractional distillation column. The problem with crude oil is that it contains hundreds of different types of hydrocarbons all mixed together. You have to separate the different types of hydrocarbons to have anything useful. Fortunately there is an easy way to separate things, and this is what oil refining is all about. Different h...