June 27, 2008
I just calculated fuel costs for my upcoming move, so here's a rambling post about OIL.
Everyone wants to blame someone for the latest oil crisis. I think it has more to do with geopolitics, the U.S. political establishment, and the oil industry than it does with environmentalists or socialists or whoever else. But it doesn't really matter who you choose for your whipping boy. We've all wasted more than thirty years during which we could've started working our way out of the inevitable end of cheap oil. Things will keep getting uglier; it's just a matter of how quickly that happens.
Lifting the ban on drilling off the coasts (and in places like ANWR) seems like a decent short-term solution, right? 60% of Americans think so. Unfortunately, the impact on gasoline prices would be negligible and it would take quite a while to ramp up drilling anyway.
Even if you feel the (dubious) short-term benefits of drilling in these places outweighs the potentially severe long-term environmental costs, I think it's worth pointing out the fact that the oil industry already has access to millions of leases to existing areas but has not tapped them yet. Instead, they're pushing to open areas in which drilling may be easier. Why? Oil may hit $150 / barrel any day now -- but much of this has to do with speculation, the weak dollar, and other economic factors. (And maybe one or two of those crazy conspiracy theories you've heard.) The oil companies are afraid the price will come down and investments in costlier areas won't pay off. (Wait... I thought they were reinvesting every penny of their record profits?)
President Bush, Senator McCain, and others are suggesting a knee-jerk reaction with questionable short-term benefits and potentially serious long-term costs. Even regardless of environmental damage, the amount of oil produced if we opened all of these areas will not solve our energy problems, especially if world oil consumption continues to rise as predicted (from 85 million barrels a day to 100 million barrels a day by 2025).
We need a focused, long-term strategy for dealing with this mess. But it's a very complicated mess and it seems like none of our policymakers have the slightest idea how to deal with it. As for the presidential candidates, John McCain's proposals amount to basically nothing. Barack Obama's proposals are better for the most part (aside from a few boneheaded ones), but even if all the better ones were implemented, I'm still not sure they would be enough.
I remember hand-wringing about oil on this blog three years ago. The politicians have done nothing in those three years. And while I would love to believe it's all George W. Bush's fault, I know it's not. I don't think policymakers are going to find a way to really grapple with this issue, so get ready for some interesting times and figure out ways to deal with it on your own.
27 Jun 23:32 | Link | Category: Current Events, Politics