During last year's presidential
campaign, Sarah Palin presented herself as an expert on energy. Her new
book includes a chapter entitled "Drill, Baby, Drill," which
encapsulates her argument that more domestic drilling is the answer to
America's energy security problem.
God put that oil underground for us to burn, she noted in a November 17
book tour interview with a fawning Rush Limbaugh.
Well … unless Palin has a connection to the Almighty that the rest of
us aren't privy to, it is presumptuous for her to pronounce so
definitively on God's intentions regarding oil. Maybe God had other
reasons for putting oil underground, such as keeping the carbon cycle
in balance so that the atmosphere and oceans can support life as we
know it. The lead article in the Spring 2009 edition of C.E.P.
Quarterly explores this theological question in depth and can be viewed
here.
For now, while the theologians ponder the question of God's
plan for oil, let's explore another critical flaw in her argument that
can be demonstrated empirically. "Drill, baby, drill" betrays a lack of
understanding of how the global oil market works and the geopolitical
disadvantage that America labors under as a result.
Gal Luft and Anne Korin, co-directors of the Institute for the Analysis
of Global Security, put it this way in their new book, Turning Oil into
Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice.
"Drill
anywhere you want, the United States has merely 3 percent of the
world's conventional oil reserve while consuming roughly a quarter of
the world's supply. The same figures are true for natural gas. If we
continue to play in the petroleum playing field, we will forever be
dwarfed by the Arabs, Nigerians, Russians, and Venezuelans."
That suits the petroleum exporters just fine, and they work to keep it
that way, as the authors explain. For every barrel of American oil that
Palin would drag up from the wilderness, the OPEC gang would respond,
as they have done for the past three decades, by leaving another barrel
in the ground, keeping the quantity of oil traded in the world market
about the same. America would remain vulnerable to the whims of
petroleum potentates and to the disruptions that both man and nature
wreak on the world oil market.
Consequently, Palin's plan would continue America's dependence on oil,
perpetuating the U.S. economy's vulnerability to price shocks and
supply disruptions. If we deplete our reserves in a rush to "drill,
baby, drill," an ever larger share of the world's oil reserves would be
controlled by countries that put their interests, not ours, first in
line.
As Luft and Korin write: "While
America is increasingly dependent on
foreign oil, to the detriment of its national and economic security,
making domestic drilling the linchpin of our energy policy will perhaps
buy us a few more years of complacency in the driver's seat of our
SUVs, after which we will be guaranteed to be in a world in which
almost no oil can be found outside the Middle East."
You don't have to take only their word for it. The International Energy
Agency (IEA), which includes the world's foremost experts on energy
supply and economics, provides more evidence for how dangerous Palin's
oil-heavy energy prescription would be for America.
The IEA’s World Energy
Outlook 2009 warns that as economic recovery
takes hold and oil demand increases, especially in developing nations
such as China and India, unfriendly countries would be in the driver's
seat: "The increasing concentration of the world's remaining
conventional oil and gas reserves in a small group of countries,
including Russia and resource-rich Middle East countries, would
increase their market power and ability to influence prices."
Further, in a field-by-field analysis of the world's oil production
areas published last year, the IEA reported that oilfields with the
highest rates of production declines are in North America. The lowest
rates are in … you guessed it … the Middle East.
We can't say for certain what God wants us to do when it comes to oil.
Neither can Sarah Palin. We can say for certain, however, what
oil-exporting despots want us to do: stay hooked on oil, keeping us
over their barrels, long into the future.
