Julie with a B

Monday, February 21, 2005
 
Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Article today in the NY Times about drilling in Alaska. I am glad to see that the oil industry is no longer interested in drilling there. There are many environmental reasons not to do this. There are also economic reasons, beyond the expense of working in that area. Something that is often difficult to do is take a long view on energy resources. The long view is this: use everyone else's oil first. Now I can hear the hue and cry over the trade deficit, the oil/gas prices hurting individuals, the oil industry here. But think of this. The value of resources is mainly in their scarcity. Crude oil is a finite product. Just like social security ;-) there are many estimates of how many years we have left of petroleum and the products made from petroleum. How about this scenario: we use everyone else's oil first. Then we are the last man standing. We can charge whatever the market will bear for that oil. That price could be astronomical. The trade deficit would reverse. Meanwhile, we develop alternate sources of energy - solar, hydrogen, etc. I don't know anything about the science of this, I do know economics. We should be in the "burn the others oil first", not the "burn America first" camp.

- posted by JulieB @ 10:06 AM
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