With increasing tensions between Iran and most of the rest of the world as well as continued civil unrest in many Middle Eastern countries, rising gasoline prices have once again become a focus of the corporate media. Increasing prices at the pump could very well be a major factor in the November election. As voters go to the polls however, it is important to keep in mind that the only way to truly solve our ongoing energy crisis is for the nation to develop on a large scale more avenues for energy procurement, and that these should be energy sources which have no ties to the limitations that fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas present.
In addition to increased fracking for natural gas, in which there is strong evidence that it has substantial negative consequences to our surface environment as well as to our underground stability and to the water table, the Republicans claim that increasing drilling domestically is the key to success in alleviating the nation’s energy woes. Yet as it is, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the United States, which has increased domestic oil production under President Barack Obama, is the third largest oil producer in the world, and since 2005 our reliance on imported oil has in fact declined.
Even so, oil prices remain high.
And this is why: oil is globally-traded through commodity speculation, and as such in addition to present supply and demand, future supply and demand estimates are also used to determine current pricing. This future outlook often takes into account worst case scenarios, driving pricing higher than present supply and demand would indicate that it should be. Furthermore, future supply and demand estimates are determined through numerous factors such as the possibility of political uncertainty, possible technical issues, capacity to increase production, and even the weather outlook. Add to this the fact that oil producers can simply choose to reduce production on a whim thus increasing oil prices, and it can be seen that there is absolutely no way to be able to get any true stability from an energy policy based upon oil.
Other fossil fuels have a similar problem as they are also a finite quantity, creating greater restriction upon supply in the shadow of ever-increasing demand. With any finite system, as supply is consumed and demand is increased, costs will rise. For example, if we dramatically increased domestic oil production as is a key factor on the GOP energy agenda, though oil prices may initially fall for the short-term, they would over the long-term rise due to a lack of future supply.
In the end, the development of alternate energy sources such as solar and wind are critical to domestic tranquility in the global energy crisis. And it is a global crisis, make no mistake. To treat the energy issue as only a domestic issue is like trying to climb up a rung-less ladder. By developing numerous common means of energy generation, there will be a reduction not only in oil demand but also a reduction in the world’s critical need to rely on oil, no matter the cost in cash and lives.
In addition to lower long-term energy costs, there is also another major economic benefit to relying more on cleaner energy technologies: a healthier environment will reduce health care costs in the long term.
Other countries will develop alternate energy sources, and in fact many including China have started investing heavily into such technologies. The United States must increase its commitment to overhauling the energy production system, before we become enthralled to yet another region of the world holding its grip on vital energy resources. The U.S. needs an energy program on par with the scale of the Apollo space program in the 1960s. Many within the nation need to be involved in this endeavor, setting difficult but realistically obtainable goals over the next ten year period. With such an achievement the United States would earn its place a world leader for the foreseeable future, and most likely beyond.
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