Before I continue, a word about oil

Posted on | May 21, 2008 | 1 Comment

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein

Before I launch into the tale of my favorite local farm, I just wanted to return to a point I almost made yesterday.

All the discussion I’ve heard about rising food prices and rising energy prices have stubbornly clung to the perspective of our current, oil-based American lifestyles and economic systems. And that, frankly, is a stupid way to think about this situation.

During a press briefing on Monday, Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer mentioned that “we need to take steps to increase our domestic supply of traditional energy sources.” He went on to talk about untapped oil and gas reserves within the 48 contiguous states, existing wells, stripper wells, offshore drilling and more.

Sounds like the potential for a lot of oil, doesn’t it?

Here’s the thing, though. Even with biofuels reducing consumption substantially, the U.S. still consumes roughly 20 million barrels of oil every day (according to the U.S. Department of Energy).

That’s 7.3 trillion barrels of oil every year.

It doesn’t matter how much oil we find, here or elsewhere. Eventually, we’re going to run out of it. There’s no way out of that, because we humans are running through the stuff a lot faster than mother nature can produce it.

So, why aren’t we making long-range plans to wean ourselves off of petroleum-based fuels altogether? Why do we have to wait until the current crisis turns into an emergency before we are willing to deal with it?

Or, if you prefer, why do our nation’s leaders lack the vision to see that they are working to preserve the current configuration of the oil and automotive industries, at the expense of our future?

We have other stuff we can use to generate electricity and we can develop other stuff to power our automobiles. (In fact, we already have the technology to make cars that get better than 50 miles to the gallon like they do in Europe.) We’re smart people. We can fix this … and maybe even make the oil we have left last a lot longer … if we do something about it now.

Maybe, in light of other issues like global climate change and peak oil, the best way to “reduce our dependence on foreign oil” is to focus on the “oil” instead of the “foreign” and work at reducing our dependence on all of it … no matter where it comes from.

[tags]energy, crude oil, petroleum products, gas prices, energy policy[/tags]