Jim DiPeso is policy director for REP AMERICA -- www.rep.org -- "The
National Grassroots Organization of Republicans for Environmental
Protection" whose national office is Albuquerque.
Albuquerque Tribune - Albuquerque,NM,USA
May 9, 2006
By Jim DiPeso
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, for quick fix solutions that
will cure all our energy ills.
We'll suspend the federal gas tax. We can plant oil wells in the
Arctic wilderness and off our coasts, assuring us years of worry-free
guzzling. Did we mention the $100 rebate?
Like a traveling medicine show, members of Congress are scurrying
from press conference to press conference to show the folks back home
that they're doing something about high gasoline prices, and by gum,
they really mean it this time.
What a farce. The time that lawmakers spend promoting showy gimmicks
is time that be should be used on a long-range strategy for moving
our country off its dangerous addiction to oil.
Time is not in our favor. Rising gasoline prices are not a transitory
market hiccup but an ominous sign that the energy system on which we
depend is dangerously unstable.
Our economy and security are at risk. If nothing is done, warns House
Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, the New York
Republican, "We are going to lurch from oil crisis to oil crisis, and
each one is going to get worse."
This should not come as a surprise. The risks of betting our future
on endless supplies of cheap oil have been known for decades. Every
day of denial and delay brought the reckoning closer, like a balloon
payment on a cut-rate mortgage.
Why now? It boils down to supply and demand in the oil market, which
is global. Supplies are tight and demand is rising, which has made
the market twitchy and prone to price spikes.
Any disruption anywhere that spooks the market sends prices upward.
Last year, it was hurricanes. This year, it's been civil unrest in
Nigeria, violence in Iraq and tension around Iran's nuclear dabbling.
Tomorrow, it could be worse. Earlier this year, security forces
thwarted terrorists attempting to bomb an oil processing plant in
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer. Had the bombers
succeeded, the result would have been economic calamity. As
terrorists like to say, they only have to be lucky once.
Even if every oil-producing region were as stable as Sweden, however,
oil is a finite commodity. Experts disagree on the timing, but global
oil production will peak in the near future and begin an inexorable decline.
The biggest gorilla in the closet is climate change. Continuing with
an energy system based on inefficient use of carbon-based fuels is a
crapshoot with dangerous odds.
Meanwhile, fuel demand keeps rising. American demand alone consumes
25 percent of global production. China, India, and other big
developing nations that want the high-energy lifestyle are using more oil.
Add more oil supply, some politicians insist. Drill the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. Drill off the coasts. Drill the Rocky
Mountains. Just drill, damn it.
We're chasing our tails if we try to drill our way out of this mess.
American wells already supply 8 percent of world oil production.
Since America holds only 2 percent of world oil reserves, we are, in
effect, draining domestic oil reserves four times faster than the
rest of the world.
Once the domestic barrel is depleted, we'd be worse off - still
addicted to oil, still vulnerable to dangerous forces beyond our control.
What we can control is demand. Greater fuel efficiency is the
essential first step that will buy time to phase in oil substitutes,
put some air into the oil market, and loosen dependence on
petro-regimes. Fuel efficiency is the American weapon that overseas
oil barons fear most.
Raising fuel economy standards to 40 miles per gallon would save more
than 4 million barrels per day by 2020 - far more than anything an
Arctic refuge oil field could ever produce.
The most promising mid-term oil alternative is biofuels produced from
farm residues, urban wastes, and fast-growing crops such as
switchgrass. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles running on a mixture of
85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline could achieve 500 miles
per gallon of gas.
Changing our unhealthy energy ways will take time and investment. Our
focus must not be on quick fixes, but on speeding up a transition to
clean and renewable fuels and energy technologies.
We must start now, to assure our country of a clean, safe and
prosperous 21st century.
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