I've gone back and forth weighing whether to respond any further to this thread... But decided to shed a little "reality" to your claim..

"We continue to find more oil, we just aren't going after it. We can do oil shale, policy simply prevents us."

The largest proven Crude Oil reserves in the World are found in Saudi Arabia at 267 billion barrels..  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Saudi_Arabia  The US uses about 20 million barrels of Crude per day... so if we were the ONLY customer.. they could keep us going for about the next 36 years at current rates..

The costs to produce Crude overseas are significantly lower than in the US.. Here we have production in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Slope of Alaska as well as older fields that are in decline..

Recently new technology such as horizontal drilling has been developed to bring the Bakken oil field online.. which is estimated to hold a little over 4 billion barrels... about 1.5% of Saudi Arabia... nice but.. not a total solution..

Chad mentions Oil Shale.. the US does hold the Lion's share of the currently known World's deposits.. primarily in the Green River Formation which by some estimates may hold upwards of 2 Trillion barrels of Crude Oil equivalent... or ten times what is in Saudi Arabia..  The only problem is.. it's shale.. and it's buried a considerable distance below the surface.  How are you going to extract it?  Mine it?  Heat it up?  What about the water table.. etc..

Basically there are no.. known.. proven methods of extracting the oil.. even though people have been trying for the past 30 years... in the early 1970's the US gov't even tried detonating four thermonuclear devices about 7,000 feet below the surface.. in an effort to get at trapped Hydrocarbons...  The results... Today these sites are listed as Legacy Cleanup sites...

http://www.em.doe.gov/SiteInfo/RioBlanco.aspx

Needless to say.. the environmentalist in Colorado were... "not amused."

Okay.. so we all agree.. there are tremendous amounts of Crude traped below the surface in the Green River basin.. and (what isn't radioactive..) could potentially meet our future needs.. just as soon as someone figures out how to access it..  This article draws a clear distinction between the 4 Billion (whoopie..) Bakken formation.. which is producing and the 2 Trillion Green River basin (significant as it is..) which is "glowing" with promise... someday... after the final passing of the last environmentalist... (good luck.)

This article says we can extract it someday... http://dailyreckoning.com/oil-shale-reserves/

However, I would also note the teaser at the bottom.. "Why Crude Oil will hit $200 a barrel!  What to do to protect yourself financially."

The production of Corn based ethanol has a net energy gain that is increasing all the time.  It probably doesn't make much sense below $30 Crude... Today Crude is higher than that and ethanol is profitable.  Without the price support from ethanol production through the energy link grain production would have crashed.. No arguments there...   Some say that although we probably won't ever run out of Crude Oil... the price is going to continue to climb.. therefore, alternatives are going to be needed.

Given the alternatives of Oil Shale or Corn based ethanol... one is literally "glowing" with potential... the other you can purchase today to fuel your car.

I know which one I'm choosing. 

We've just experienced a rapid expansion of ethanol.. it may take a few years.. and time for the energy cycle to progress again through the coming valley then the next peak.. before Cellulosic ethanol finds the investment needed to gain the traction that corn based ethanol already has.  However, unless something cheaper comes along.. Crude Oil will continue it's steady march higher in price as the easily developed resources are depleted across the globe.. and that you can bank on.

We're just another Hurricane away from the next Crude Oil spike.