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Another inconvenient truth
Solutions to oil crisis obvious, if we just take leap
Yes, they are high. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, it hurts everyone. Yes, we are beholden to foreign oil. Yes, there are solutions, and . . . No, you don't want the solutions, and sometimes I find them hard to swallow, also! Let's get some facts straight. We did not go to war for oil (remember Afghanistan has NO natural resources except poppy fields, and I'm sure we didn't go to war for Opium as the British did in China). Iraq has never provided us or the rest of the world much oil, even under Saddam Hussein as its infrastructure and oil machinery were in horrible upkeep and down for repairs most of the time. Our biggest oil importers are 1) Canada, 2) Mexico, and 3) Venezuela. The Saudis actually stay hovering around Nos. 5 or 6 most of the time. Next fact: The Saudis have hit their "peak" at oil production as many professionals have predicted. They said, "We are doing all we can," and it is true. They are now pumping water into most of their fields and pumping out a 50-percent mixture of oil and water that then becomes more expensive to separate and process. They project a loss of a million barrels a day out of their old fields and have recently started drilling and pumping out of a field of "last-resort/high-risk," which means they are probably drilling at an extreme angle (probably siphoning from western Kuwaiti fields?) that will only replace the million they project to lose with an average million barrels a day from the new fields. Bottom line: They can't pump any more than they are. Last fact is one almost everyone knows: There has never been an "oil shortage" (gas shortages, yes), and the Saudi prince stated this fact just last week when he mentioned that world oil production is currently sufficient to meet everyone's demands and needs. Everyone is complaining and stating that we must "develop our own oil finds" in central Colorado; off the Florida coast (the Chinese, Mexicans and Venezuelans are already drilling there in international waters!); and Anwar, which is a barren tundra that does not support the supposed herds of caribou you see in commercials. However, what good would that really do for us? How are we going to turn that oil into gasoline? The waterways in the Galveston area and Port Morgan, La., are clogged with tankers waiting to unload to refineries for processing oil into other products. We haven't had a refinery built in 28 years, and those are experiencing upkeep difficulties requiring them to be brought off-line for repairs. Everyone knows and notices when, in late fall and spring, those refineries shift their production from gasoline to homeheating oil. They also are overburdened as the corn grown in the Midwest has to be shipped to Louisiana and Texas for refining. Then there is only one pipeline north back to Chicago and Milwaukee that mandate that fuel, but they don't want the refineries in their backyard! The oil price problem is "multi-faceted." It doesn't do us any good nor save us any money if we have to ship U.S.- pumped oil overseas to foreign refineries (then we are at their mercy again!) to be refined into gasoline and shipped back to the U.S. Recently South Dakota started building the first refinery in 28 years! Here is my CHALLENGE. Santa Rosa residents, you complain about oil prices; you complain about U.S. companies wanting to drill off our coast even though foreign countries are already doing it; you complain about the horrible economy and the lack of jobs and industries in our area. Here is our big chance. I will guarantee that there will be plentiful jobs, more industry, more growth (God help us on that one!) and you will have companies beating down our door in Northwest Florida if you advertise and let it be known that we will become part of the "solution" by inviting anyone wanting to build refineries or anybody interested in building a nuclear power plant! I have to admit that I'm like the rest of you and cringe at the idea of that type of industry in my backyard. But facts are facts, and I, at least, will NOT COMPLAIN about gas prices as long as American citizens refuse to build refineries; drill for oil everywhere we can in the good ol' US of A; and build more nuclear power plants. What's it going to be? Travel by mopeds and bicycles, or an oil refinery in our area? James Gschwind, Ph.D. USN/SW Retired Gulf Breeze |
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