Spill here, spill now
Subbing for Ezra Klein, Kate Sheppard writes:
The U.S. uses 23 percent of total world oil consumption, but has only 3 percent the world’s oil reserves within its borders. Drilling off every coast in the U.S. won’t resolve that issue. Even the most productive portion of the new area opened to drilling in the March announcement, a 24 million acre area of the eastern gulf, is expected to yield only 3.5 billion recoverable barrels of oil. The U.S. consumes 19.5 million barrels of oil per day, which means that these wells would only produce about 180 days worth of oil – hardly worth the catastrophic situation we face in the gulf today.
This topic is, generally speaking, something I have wondered about. While it might make for a catchy political slogan, the notion of drilling our way to any form of energy independence strikes me as pretty far-fetched. If the idea were that we would temporarily pursue increased domestic oil production while we also pursued alternative, non-fossil fuel energy sources, I might be more inclined to go along with it. However, given that the majority of the people shouting “Drill, baby, drill!” are using it as a rhetorical bludgeon against anyone suggesting we seek out or fund alternative energy production, I am disinclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I do have one issue with Sheppard’s post, though. I don’t know the numbers involved, so I can’t say for sure, but the “23% of the world’s consumption / 3% of the world’s supply” comparison seems a bit slippery to me. Comparing percentages seems like it is apples-to-apples, but without actual, hard numbers, I can’t say that there isn’t some fudging going on there.