The real cause of our current energy crisis of skyrocketing fuel prices - leading to our gas pains at the pump - is our failure to create alternative energy resources. Ouch. Pointing the finger at ourselves? Not going to happen we always need a villain as the cause of our woe.

We can look to Washington and blame our various administrations. Many of us were not even born to witness the gas rationing during World War II. However many of us recall the late 70's and early 80's and how we were - excuse my choice of words - "over the barrel ? when it came to crude oil prices. Following the lead of President Jimmy Carter, we turned our thermostats to 68' degrees in the dead of winter in an effort to conserve energy.

These measures which attempted to rein in our dependency made for great headlines but little else.

We eventually cranked up the thermostats once again purchased gas guzzling cars which we drove all over (consuming gazillions of galloons of crude) without any concern.

An energy conservation or energy alternative program? Please. There is plenty of cheap crude oil to last us hundreds of years.

Wrong answer.

Crude oil is not a renewable energy source. Once you use barrel, it does not spontaneously regenerate another barrel to replace itself. It is gone and can never be replaced.

This is what oil producing nations have to be concerned about their limited fossil fuel (oil) supply. Once it is gone, it is gone. There goes their oil dependent economy. (AND with their inability to supply us with crude our economy will slide as well.)

Put yourself in the role of supplying a product, any product, which is heavily in demand and you only have the ability to sell so much. Would you try to extract the most amount of money for it?

This is exactly what is happening to fuel prices right now. That gas pump is trying to extort an obscene amount of money from you because of limited supply of crude yet we - along with other developed and developing countries - demand more and more.

The solution.

Ready for this?

The solution is simple. Simple economics.

The plan to execute the solution is extremely complex.

First the solution: we have to cut down on crude oil demand which would then lead to an overabundance of supply. Oil tankers will continue to be loaded with crude and no place to unload as the demand for their loads has been substantially decreased.

Increased crude supply (due to no one wanting all the crude that is being produced) caused by lower demand for it equals major reductions of crude oil prices by the oil producing countries. How does this happen?

Alternative sources of energy with a heavy concentration of renewable energy such as the sun or wind power. (I am not even going to mention a few of the other alternative energy sources such as grain or vegetable oil converted to fuel.)

We have the ability to get ourselves out of this gas pain at the gas pump.

The more we can encourage American imagination, the sooner our answer will come to relieve our gas pains. The sooner our answer will come to decrease our demand for crude. The sooner will crude supplies start to fill crude storage tanks in oil producing countries. Prices will have to radically fall to move this crude as our alternative energy technology spreads worldwide.