Drilling to Energy indipendence
I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio today. He said that drilling our way to energy independence is the only logical and sensible thing to do. In fact, Mr. Limbaugh, it is both illogical and senseless for several reasons, which I will go into a wee bit later. Once again your sense of what is "reason" eludes me.
First let me say that I am not against drilling. I am very much a proponent of alternative energy sources--wind, solar and all of the rest. We should be investing heavily in them, but none of those will replace oil very soon. Until we switch to a fleet of electric or fuel cell vehicles, gas will be king, and sadly we still lack the battery that can take us long distances. We must move as quickly as we can away from oil, but oil it is for the near term.
Having said all of that, why can't just drilling work? To begin, we don't have enough oil. Most experts say we have between 3% and 5% of the world's oil. I saw one estimate that we might have as much as 8%, so we will go with that one. We use 25% of the world's oil. That is down from 28%. We did not drop our usage that much, China just upped theirs. We could drop drill heads into everywhere possible and still not make up the 17-point difference between supply and demand. CAN'T do it!
Next, we can't make the oil companies drop those drill heads. They don't want a plentiful supply of oil. Petroleum corporations are not American companies; they are international entities. We should not expect them to be patriotic. They are not supposed to be. Their only loyalty is to their stockholders and that is as it should be. That is what private enterprise is. They are now making more money than any companies in the history of humanity. That's not hyperbole. As far as the stockholders are concerned, the companies are doing great. The whole debate about offshore drilling is a red herring. If you talk to soft-rock geologists, they will tell you there are still many sites that have oil where the companies are allowed to drill. They companies are not rapidly expanding drilling, because they don't want a plentiful supply of oil. They want just enough oil so that the price stays very high but not high enough to chase folks off of it. We can chant, "drill baby drill," but they won't do it.
Lastly, the oil that is pumped out of Texas, or Oklahoma, or off the coast of Oregon, does not necessarily stay there. Oil is a commodity and traded on the world market. If China or India is willing to pay more for that oil than, say, the residents of Pennsylvania, guess where that oil goes. It goes to the heart of industry overseas. We can't stop that from happening unless we were to pass laws saying that the oil did not really belong to Exxon and that it had to stay here. That would not be very free-enterprise-oriented. Even if we found miracle supplies of oil in Utah and could make the oil companies drill for it, we could not stop all of that oil from going to India.
We can not drill our way to energy independence. It really is illogical and senseless, and a waste of personal energy and argument. It is a smokescreen to keep us from truly addressing our nation's energy needs. It might be an easy answer for folks who don't want to look at making the hard choices we need to make as we move toward true energy independence. We can't quite yet abandon oil, but we must move away from it.
First let me say that I am not against drilling. I am very much a proponent of alternative energy sources--wind, solar and all of the rest. We should be investing heavily in them, but none of those will replace oil very soon. Until we switch to a fleet of electric or fuel cell vehicles, gas will be king, and sadly we still lack the battery that can take us long distances. We must move as quickly as we can away from oil, but oil it is for the near term.
Having said all of that, why can't just drilling work? To begin, we don't have enough oil. Most experts say we have between 3% and 5% of the world's oil. I saw one estimate that we might have as much as 8%, so we will go with that one. We use 25% of the world's oil. That is down from 28%. We did not drop our usage that much, China just upped theirs. We could drop drill heads into everywhere possible and still not make up the 17-point difference between supply and demand. CAN'T do it!
Next, we can't make the oil companies drop those drill heads. They don't want a plentiful supply of oil. Petroleum corporations are not American companies; they are international entities. We should not expect them to be patriotic. They are not supposed to be. Their only loyalty is to their stockholders and that is as it should be. That is what private enterprise is. They are now making more money than any companies in the history of humanity. That's not hyperbole. As far as the stockholders are concerned, the companies are doing great. The whole debate about offshore drilling is a red herring. If you talk to soft-rock geologists, they will tell you there are still many sites that have oil where the companies are allowed to drill. They companies are not rapidly expanding drilling, because they don't want a plentiful supply of oil. They want just enough oil so that the price stays very high but not high enough to chase folks off of it. We can chant, "drill baby drill," but they won't do it.
Lastly, the oil that is pumped out of Texas, or Oklahoma, or off the coast of Oregon, does not necessarily stay there. Oil is a commodity and traded on the world market. If China or India is willing to pay more for that oil than, say, the residents of Pennsylvania, guess where that oil goes. It goes to the heart of industry overseas. We can't stop that from happening unless we were to pass laws saying that the oil did not really belong to Exxon and that it had to stay here. That would not be very free-enterprise-oriented. Even if we found miracle supplies of oil in Utah and could make the oil companies drill for it, we could not stop all of that oil from going to India.
We can not drill our way to energy independence. It really is illogical and senseless, and a waste of personal energy and argument. It is a smokescreen to keep us from truly addressing our nation's energy needs. It might be an easy answer for folks who don't want to look at making the hard choices we need to make as we move toward true energy independence. We can't quite yet abandon oil, but we must move away from it.