Dependence on oil creates national security issues. There's too many people who have got oil that may not like us.

—George W. Bush, 2007

The world oil market controls the price you pay for gas at your neighborhood gas station. Taxes, gas station profits, and oil-refinery profits also take their toll, but when you see the price of gas go up twenty cents in one week, that’s the world oil market in action. There’s no escaping it. Even if your gas station sells gasoline made from 100 percent American oil, the price will go up exactly the same amount. Even if you buy American corn ethanol, the world oil market will hit you just as hard.

This spells bad news for the most popular path to energy independence—alternative fuels. But there are two other paths that the world oil market treats more kindly...