Supposedly dwindling supplies of oil prompted the chants of drill, baby, drill that polluted the public discourse during the presidential election.

Did we miss something?  When oil was $147.00 per barrel, which occurred ages ago (five months as this is written) Big Oil had its army of schills screeching for relaxing environmental protections so they could help America achieve energy independence.

“Just let us at that oil that’s off limits in two miles of water all around the country, and we will rescue the country from the evil oil empires and godless communists/socialists who are holding our economy hostage.”

The chanters have fallen silent.

Did the supply of black gold suddenly increase?  No, the price of oil suddenly fell due to the world economic slowdown and decreasing demand for oil.  So, for now we don’t need to exploit those off shore oil assets.  The fact that drilling for oil in two miles of water is only economically feasible when the price is well over $100.00 per barrel has nothing to do with it.

What would the reaction be if we forced the oil companies to drill for that oil in the interests of national security, or better yet, cut them out and let the government do it.  Cries of socialism, communism, collectivism, and other denigrating isms would abound.  Oil companies are the best to judge when the time is right to gut environmental protections in the interests of energy independence, not the people or the government.

When will we need to drill, baby, drill again?  You got it, when the price goes up again.  It really has nothing to do with supply, it only has to do with price (which of course goes down when demand decreases).

So, by extrapolation, if we could decrease demand for “burning oil” to close to zero, how close to zero would the price go?  (more…)

The enemy in the War for Endependence (energy independence that ends dependence on polluting fuels) is aggressively prosecuting the war.

The War for Endependence is a war against “cheap energy“.  Fossil fuels have been cheap energy for the last 150 years or so, and now with the short term dip in oil prices, they are even cheaper.

In July 2008, oil was $147.00 per barrel, and now in November it is about $50.00 per barrel.  Gasoline that was over $4.00 per gallon is less than $2.00 per gallon.  What seemed like a no brainer in July, driving fuel efficient vehicles, is again a quandary less than five months later.

The truth is that cheap energy is only cheap if we don’t count what the economists call “externalities”, things like greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.

Here is a video about the greenhouse gas externalities by Sir David Attenborough.

http://endependence.info/research/videos-c-13-v-81.html

With a world wide economic downturn and a drop in fossil fuel prices, how easy it is for people, businesses and governments to get lulled into complacency.

George Washington and the Continental Army did not surrender or return to their farms when they lost early battles in the War for Independence. (more…)