America’s energy future and the reality of $100-per-barrel crude oil

One of the greatest luxuries in the American way of life is the unlimited use of the automobile. Almost every household has one or more cars or other petroleum-driven vehicles which are necessary for our lifestyle and livelihood. No one would give up his or her car without suffering a great inconvenience and probably loss of income.

The demand for crude oil to fuel our automobiles increases each year, not only in the U.S. but worldwide. This is especially true in China and India where demand is surging and millions of cars are being added to the roadways.

The amount of oil being consumed worldwide far exceeds that being replaced by new discoveries. Worldwide crude oil production will probably peak within a relatively few years, as there is very little excess producing capacity remaining in the world’s oil fields. The price per barrel of oil on the Mercantile Exchange continues to rise and is already bumping $100 per barrel. Much of this is due to inflation, but what about the future price of oil?


…America has the ability to postpone shortages of petroleum for years, by allowing drilling on restricted federal lands and in offshore federal and state waters that are now off-limits to drilling. This will allow a gradual inclusion of supplemental fuels without suffering another major oil shock as in 1973. The best prospective areas for finding new U.S. oil reserves are in: 1) Northern Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 2) the Pacific states’ coastal waters, 3) waters presently restricted in the Gulf of Mexico, and 4) the Atlantic states’ coastal waters.

Environmental restrictions are preventing drilling in these prospective areas, based on the conjured fears of pollution to the environment which may destroy wildlife and fish. These same environmental objections almost stopped the U.S. from building the Alaskan Pipeline several decades ago, with environmentalist saying that this would kill off the herds of caribou. Time has shown that the caribou along the pipeline have flourished and multiplied several-fold.

Clarion-Ledger