In the national debate over energy, the idea that world’s oil production may have peeked is gaining currency. But according to Professor Barclay Jones, a nuclear engineer at the University of Illinois, such claims overlook the potential of new technologies to meet our growing demands. Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, Barclay notes there is approximately two trillion barrels of oil beneath the soil in some of our western states that can be extracted from shale, with another 1.5 trillion which can be recovered in the tar sands of Canada. With new technologies to economically refine these sources into gasoline, such as those using nuclear energy, it is possible there exist enough homegrown oil to last our nation for, at minimum, many decades.