The Offshore Drilling Fallacy
The rise in oil prices has given rise to many valid complaints about gas prices. The exorbitant cost of gasoline is putting a squeeze on the budget of most Americans. People find that they are not just paying a lot more money to fill their tanks, the cost of food and anything that is made with oil derivatives or is shipped from distant places is rising as well. Given that situation and the upcoming presidential election, it was inevitable that some unethical politician would start pandering. What is sad is that McCain, who once was a principled maverick who stood for straight talking is now instead speaking with a forked tongue.
There is no doubt about it we have an energy problem, made worse by a government administration that did nothing but line the pockets of bil oil for 8 long years. We need to do something to fix this problem and we need to act quickly but drilling offshore is not the answer. We need to look for alternate energy sources and we need to conserve oil. We also need to invest in developing new technologies. In the near future the alternative energy industry is going to be developing quickly. The US can either work to be a leader of that industry or let it be developed elsewhere and lose the opportunity to get high paying tech jobs and give birth to a highly profitable industry sector.
There are many reasons why drilling offshore is a bad idea. Let me count the ways.
- The US has less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves: Even if the US extracted all that oil, it would hardly affect the price of oil. The US uses over 20% of the world’s oil supply. A mere increase of 2% in supply will not lower prices significantly.
- Extracting the oil will take a long time: Even if we started drilling now, it would take decades to get that oil into gas tanks. Analysts say it may take anywhere from 10 to 30 years to get the oil out. What will the price of a gallon of gas be in 2018?
- The oil companies are not using the leases they have now: There are many oil leases going fallow. Why aren’t the oil companies drilling there? Why do the oil companies want more oil leases? This is just a land grab.
- Extracting hard to reach oil is only profitable when prices are high: If the price of oil drops, the oil companies will not be able to make a profit extracting this oil. No high prices, no oil. That guarantees consumers won’t see lower oil prices.
- The free market: If the oil companies do extract this oil why would they sell it at a lower price in the US market, if they could make a higher profit in Europe, India or China?
There are probably many other reasons. What should make us all suspicious is that no one outside of the fossil energy industry is saying that offshore drilling is a solution for high gasoline prices. Only the people who are likely to make big profits are advocating offshore drilling. The experts on the other hand tell us that the way out of this mess is to conserve.
The real and long lasting solution to this problem lies in conservation and in alternative fuels. In the past 30 years, the fuel efficiency of car engines has not increased significantly. This is not because automotive engineers are sitting back drinking beer in front of their TV’s. Modern car engines are very efficient; they produce more horsepower per gallon of gas than engines from the 1970s. The trick is that it is difficult to raise both gas mileage and horsepower. Car companies have opted for giving us cars that accelerate faster rather than cars that drive further.
The government has also failed to prod the car companies in the right direction. Car companies have resisted many of the things we now take for granted. They opposed safety belts and air bags; they oppose higher gas mileage standards. The government needs to stop listening to car companies and raise mileage standards for all vehicles. Car mileage standards rose after the oil crisis of the 1970’s but the government excluded small trucks from the regulation. This loophole was exploited by car manufacturers and resulted in the introduction of SUVs.
The gas mileage standard might have been too low but they at least applied to all cars. This loophole allowed vehicles with ridiculously low mileage to be sold to the public. This was not much of a problem while gas prices were low, but with gas prices spiking to never before seen heights, the millions of SUVs wasting untold gallons of gas are hurting the pocketbook of all Americans. We have been using gas as if there was an infinite supply. There are no hidden, mysterious solutions. We can all do something real to lower prices. We can conserve energy. Conservation and alternative sources of energy are the answer; anything else is election year pandering. Any politician who advocates offshore drilling as a solution to high oil prices is lying in order to get elected. Take that into consideration when you cast your ballot in November.
