I've always said that we should tap ourselves before we tap them. I suppose you can look at it two ways;
We tap them first, and when they run dry we are only of a few major sources left, giving us the power to control the supply and make the rules.
We tap ourselves, and once we run dry we are again in the hands of other countries for our supply, and on top of that we can't threaten them with starting to drill ourselves.
I think long term we will probably be better off as a country to buy from other countries for now, because at some point (even if hundreds of years) they will run dry, and we will hold the cards.
