All U.S. presidents since Richard Nixon (and including him) swore they would reduce or eliminate U.S. dependence on foreign oil. All failed except Jimmy Carter, who reduced crude oil imports from 8.6 million barrels per day to 4.3 million in 1982. (This extended into Reagan’s administration for two years.)
Today we import 61 percent of our crude oil, approximately 10.5 million barrels per day. However, if one looks more deeply into oil statistics, they tell a scarier tale. The United States’ crude oil production peaked about 1970, including Alaskan oil, which has also peaked and is tailing off. Our gasoline consumption continues to climb, and average gas mileage per vehicle has worsened, from 22.1 mpg to 20.4 mpg.
The most startling data concern the number of oil wells, output per well, and cost per barrel to produce crude oil. These figures are from 1979, when Iraq was still producing 3.4 million barrels per day:
From these data we can conclude that Iraq is now what West Texas was back in the 1930s: A desert sitting on top of a lake of oil just waiting to gush. Since 1979, Iraq’s oil production has significantly fallen, because of its war with Iran, the first Gulf War, UN Sanctions, rotting infrastructure and the recent war. (At worst, Iraq’s production got as low as 250,000 barrels per day during the recent war, but may have risen to approximately 1 million now.) However, the 1980s and ’90s were a go-go period in the United States, so we’ve gone through 140 billion barrels of oil since 1979! In 2003, the United States is just about tapped out.
When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld adamantly exclaimed, “The war has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil,” he was telling a horrific lie, which, sadly, many Americans believe.
Early in the war, U.S. troops rapidly surrounded the Rumaila oil field, Kirkuk oil fields and the Oil Ministry in Baghdad, leaving the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the National Museum of Antiquities, and hospitals to be looted. Those were our clear priorities.
Military facts provide compelling evidence. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has closed 106 major bases at home, 32 bases in Europe and nine in East Asia. However, we have created 15 major new bases, all in the Middle East, basically surrounding oil fields that hold two thirds of the world’s supply. An intelligent person could ask: “If the Middle Eastern countries consisted of nothing but sand, plains and mountains, would the United States have any presence there at all?”
Halliburton Oil, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and Bechtel Corp., have been awarded $800 million worth of contracts, without competitive bidding, to get Iraq’s oil flowing again. Corporate cronies of President Bush clearly expect to make a killing by pumping and selling Iraq’s oil, which will likely be re-privatized (Saddam did succeed in nationalizing Iraq’s oil) and controlled strictly by American and British companies. OPEC could be superceded if production in Iraq attained 12 million barrels per day. Politically, we could disengage from the shaky government of Saudi Arabia, telling them “We don’t need your oil, because we’re getting cheaper stuff next door!” (Paul Wolfowitz hinted at this in a recent Esquire article). This sounds great!
There is a problem, however. It is probable that world oil production is now approaching its peak or has already peaked. Thereafter, there is no “supply side” solution. You can’t satisfy increased craving for a diminishing resource you don’t own, unless you don’t mind constant strife to commandeer ever greater portions of somebody else’s.
For the United States, the only solution for our impending oil crisis is rapid demand reduction, which, unfortunately, is extremely unappealing to the Bush administration and most American citizens.
Nevertheless, Americans will, by necessity, be turning to public transit, walking, bicycling and telecommuting. They’ll live in higher urban-core densities, with subsidized housing and “green” buildings. They’ll see piggy-back rail instead of semi-trucks, an enhanced Amtrak, more locally-grown produce, and automobiles like the Toyota Prius ($87 billion would buy 4,350,000 of those 55 mpg vehicles).
In sum, a healthier, friendlier way of living, not based on growth, but based on a “dynamic equilibrium” otherwise known as balance.
John D. Lindstrom of Everett is a retired Everett Community College instructor, and served on the city’s waterfront public access committee.
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