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…)

No matter how well we plan for a future freed from the burden of fossil fuel dependence, we are going to be stuck with the stuff for a while.

As our stationary and mobile energy challenges are solved by moving to electricity generated by renewable energy sources that can be used for both buildings and transportation, we are going to be using coal, oil and natural gas.

http://endependence.info/research/videos-c-1-v-6.html

We can all start to save energy in both sectors.  Estimates are that we could use 30% less energy simply by eliminating waste.

Here is a funny video about the reaction of some to the concept of saving gasoline by driving fuel efficient cars.

http://endependence.info/research/videos-c-1-v-42.html

A recent article in “Automotive News” shows the steps that will be taken by the automobile manufacturers to meet increasing mileage standards (CAFE - corporate average fuel economy). (more…)