I have been a little surprised at the glut of coverage on oil this past week. Bush's speech on Tuesday, advocating drilling in ANWAR and opening up the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for exploration and drilling is probably the proximal reason for all the coverage. Still, my mindset has been that we are in the midst of an energy crisis since the mid 1970's. The low prices of petroleum through the 90's upset and scared me. The popularity of SUV's made me very nervous. I had read the figures on the potential for oil in ANWAR, and it was clear that any reserves there would make no practical difference even in the best case scenario. I found this graph at Hullabaloo a few days ago, and it drives home the insignificance of ANWAR reserves in a way no list of numbers can:

Now I am NOT opposed to oil drilling in principle; we have used most of the oil that originally existed in this country, but there is a substantial amount left. Oil is a precious resource that we need, and we should go after sources that are practical, and will not cause harm to the environment as extraction takes place. But the purpose of creating a wildlife refuge is to give, well, refuge to wildlife. A drilling rig does not qualify as a refuge. One pundit pointed out that if you mapped ANWAR to the scale of an envelope, the footprint of the drilling operation would be the size of a postage stamp. First, I would also like to know about the footprint of the exploration process, which would almost certainly involve a network of seismic lines and setting off a large number of explosives. It's possible that during the winter vibroseis trucks might be feasable, but it doesn't seem very likely to me. Second, if you were to map me to the size of an envelope, a thirty caliber bullet would have a footprint only the size of a period. That doesn't make the idea of being shot any more appealing to me.

I am much more amenable to the idea of opening up the coasts for exploration and extraction- not excited, but amenable. The proviso to keep in mind is that there will almost certainly be accidents and spills. I would prefer that didn't happen (and I'm sure everyone agrees) but it's impossible to eliminate all risks. Are we as a country willing to accept those risks to feed our addiction? I'm sorry to say that I believe the answer to that question is "yes." It utimately makes no difference to me personally: I don't own and have no interest in owning a car. My total energy usage amounts to 3-4 kilowatt hours per day, or a little less than an average of $20 per month. But again, I've been in the energy crisis mindset for more than thirty years, not just the last few months. I do not expect others to tolerate wintertime household temperatures in the mid fifties. I do not expect the typical family to be able to function without a car. I do not expect people in much of the US to do without air conditioning. I do not expect a multi-person household to turn off their water heater and plan to do all their "hot water tasks" at one time. But I'll bet almost everyone, if they thought about it, could find at least a few relatively painless ways to reduce the energy they consume. Much of that energy is not produced from petroleum, but energy usage is such a rat's-nest of intertwined causes and effects that any reduction ends up being a good thing.

I've been accumulating notes and links to point out pros and cons of various options we as a country and culture have available to us as we move forward into an era of $4.oo/gallon gasoline. I suppose this may sound (and may even be) insensitive, but I believe that current prices of oil are the best thing that could happen. Not only will it force us to find alternatives, but it will make those alternatives much more competetive.