Drilling Is Our Salvation?

Drilling in parks; drilling in ANWAR; drilling far out to sea: doing all of these things will drive down the cost of oil they say; it will cut our imports they say; drilling will lead to energy independence they say--the facts say otherwise. What all this drilling will do is make money for the oil industry and line the coffers of those supposed to be representing the average American.
By the time new oil hits the market demand will zero out any gains in new oil, for demand on average goes up at least as quickly as population grows. They way the oil industry tells it (as well as Texas Congressmen and women) we can achieve oil independence if we drill domestically in all of those places mentioned above; but can we? Some facts: the U.S. uses up 7 billion barrels of oil a year and we import about 60% of that 7 billion barrels. That means we would have to find 60% of that 7 billion barrels, or 4.2 billion barrels. That would mean 4.2 billion each year plus increased demand needed to keep up with population growth. It is impossible to find that much oil anywhere. The coastal areas and ANWAR are one time deals and would only provide us with a few years worth of oil at best.
Our major providers of oil--Mexico, Venezuela, Africa are unpredictable and sometime down the line will either no longer be able to provide us with oil or will decline to for political reasons. So where is our independence? Drilling for it or depending on outsiders for it will not do it?
What about solar, wind, tide etc.? Try pouring electricity into a gas tank! Politicians and environmental advocates keep mixing apples and oranges. Electricity does not directly link to gasoline or diesel fuel. Electricity may replace gasoline in small automobiles and that could make some impact since 60% of our oil is used in transportation. But so far batteries are still limiting electric car development. Trucks are unlikely to be powered by electricity. Biodiesel and syngas made from coal is most likely to take the place of petroleum based energy.
The public therefore needs to be educated about energy. Solar and wind will not reduce gasoline prices or do anything about becoming energy independent. We could provide electricity to the ultimate capacity and it would not reduce oil imports or reduce gasoline or diesel prices one wit. The Kennedys could talk themselves hoarse and it would not change reality about electricity and oil. Global warming may be a serious threat but it is nothing compared to what would happen if we dilly dallied regarding oil depletion and developing oil alternatives.
T. Boone Pickens was right about oil depletion and his plan to make natural gas an alternative transportation fuel makes some sense but natural gas is a gas and therefore presents some problems: it is hard to transport, it takes special handling, storage is a problem, fuel tanks are large and the list goes on. Naturally T. Boone being an oil man looks to making money from natural gas, it comes out along with petroleum. His logic about wind replacing natural gas in electricity generation is hard to follow and assumes that the energy corporations running the natural gas generators will give up millions of dollars worth of equipment in order to switch to wind generators. That is not likely to happen and besides who is going to place thousands of power towers to run lines from the country to metropolitan areas and what about all the energy loss, up to 95% losses? Solar panels on roofs are much more efficient in some ways.