Where Black misses the target is in his claim that no one has a plan to deal with it, should it happen. He's right that the plans out there, particularly those of our current presidential candidates, are short sighted. However, he doesn't seem to realize that, with the expiration of the offshore drilling ban, we could be up and running within a matter of weeks, if not months: long before the strategic reserves have run out.
Or perhaps he believes the persistent myths about oil exploration and production. Most are listed in an AP story that FoxNews links to. The current consensus is that oil production from new wells is at least ten years away: that lease negotiation, exploration, drilling and tapping, and getting the product to market will take around a decade.
However, that consensus hides a lot of politics that has nothing to do with actual production. According to Ben Lieberman of the Heritage Foundation, for the past 26 years, congress has refused to even allow exploration for additional reserves. Eighteen years ago, the first President Bush added an executive order to that ban, creating overlapping protections that certain lobbies insisted upon. Before those bans were placed, we had estimates that there were about 19 billion barrels of oil, or something like 30 years' worth of oil imported from Saudi Arabia alone.
Those estimates are a quarter of a century old. As Janet Levy of the American Thinker points out, estimates only guess what's recoverable at current technology levels. The likelihood is that the reserves are much larger. In fact, she says
Although Congress has not authorized a thorough inventory of offshore resources for over 30 years, the American Petroleum Institute estimates recoverable U.S. oil resources at about 86 billion barrels offshore and 32 billion barrels onshore.[7] This estimate doesn't take into consideration technological advancements, unconventional sources and recent discoveries.
I will concede that the lease negotiations may well take years--but that's politics, not production. As is the refusal to allow drilling in one small area where there are proven, recoverable, oil reserves that would nudge us toward, if not independence, then toward being less dependent upon hostile nations' oil sales.
Environmental arguments about risks to wildlife and pristine forests have kept ANWR off limits to energy development, even though such risks are unfounded. Drilling in the region would cover a mere tenth of one percent of its 19 million acres. Plus, ANWR is a flat, treeless plain with temperatures inhospitable for most animal species. The area is already home to a village of Native Americans, who support its development. It currently contains an airstrip, power lines, an oil well and a military radar site. Two decades of drilling in the North Slope area has had no negative effects on the ecology of the area and, during that time, the caribou population actually increased sevenfold.
Also political are the nearly-instantaneous lawsuits that environmental lobbies file upon any announcement of any new lease to oil exploration companies, seeking to block any new exploration. These take years to fight.
So, maybe the ten year estimate isn't that far off, but it has nothing to do with production, and everything to do with lobbies and politics. However, with gas prices soaring, and people getting impatient with the environmental lobbies, I doubt that future lawsuits will prevent oil exploration and drilling for nearly as long. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop the bureaucratic nonsense that the Department of the Interior puts upon lease-seekers.
However, refusing to allow leasing, exploration, and new production just because it will be ten years before it gets to market is as short sighted as deciding not to save money for your children's college, just because they're infants, and therefore have no need for the money now. It's as short sighted as--never mind. We've already seen how short-sighted politicians and the American voter can be with the subprime mortgage popularity and subsequent collapse.
Still. Renewal of the offshore production that was cut off by the offshore ban passed in 1982 could start flooding the American market with oil within the next couple of months. The wells are there. The equipment is there. The infrastructure for getting the oil from the well to the shore is there. All the producers have to do is update and upgrade equipment left for a quarter of a century.
It's not just the oil we need, we need refineries. That is what the greenie-weenies need to shut up about. Several gas stations have shut down because there is no gas for them to sell, mainly due to hurricane activity. We need more ground side refineries that won't be affected by hurricane evacuations.
ReplyDeleteThe Sibling
I definitely agree. If I had the money, I'd sponsor one built in an area where the jobs are needed--like Arkansas, or Southwest Missouri.
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