The political season is upon us and I’m getting more than a little tired of hearing political rhetoric making the oil business out as the bad guys along with the politicians that actually understand the energy issues. When I hear the attack ads it’s conjures up images of shady backrooms and bad men in green visors and armbands plotting to ruin the world by conspiring to raise oil prices beyond human reach and dumping barrels of oil in my front yard just to piss me off and ruin the earth.
I spent over 20 years working as an exploration geologist (I am now a Realtor) helping a small independent company’s efforts in finding and producing oil and natural gas. I’m extremely proud of that history and have the highest respect for the professionals that I had the pleasure of working with.
Let me be clear, oil and gas exploration companies are not the bad guys that they are made out to be.
These companies are owned and operated by hard working, intelligent individuals that love our country and our environment just as much as the “environmentalists” that think they’re protecting the world by denouncing energy exploration. My blog today though is not about oil and gas specifically; but about the seeming perception that energy independence is an either/or battle between oil and alternative resources. It is not us or them. It is fossil fuels AND all of the alternative energy resources working together.
I’ve watched our reliance on oil imports rise steadily over the past thirty plus years. We now import approximately 70% of our oil. Over that same time period the environmental community has become stronger and more vocal while the energy industry seems to simply stand by and take the blows like Rocky Balboa of movie fame. While oil imports grew we failed to build refineries, we failed to build nuclear generating plants and we were not able to drill some of the more attractive oil and natural gas targets on our own lands and shores.
I have been a quiet voice in this conversation; too quiet, speaking only to close friends about how the oil industry needs to speak up and introduce itself to our populace. The public needs to know more about the energy business as a whole and this piece is my first effort to try and make a difference. Hurray for the American Petroleum Institute (www.API.org) for finally running some insightful ads in an attempt to educate the public and humanize the industry.
The first point to be understood, like it or not, is that fossil fuels are the standard by which all other energy resources must be measured. It’s not because the oil or coal companies made it that way. It’s because our society demanded that it be that way. Fossil fuels are the most abundant and cheapest form of energy available to heat our homes, light our lights and to power our vehicles. All other forms of energy are economically dependent on the product prices of oil and coal. If they’re too cheap, like society would like to see, no progress is made in alternative resources because it is economically not feasible. Nuclear, oil shale, wind, solar, fuel cell, hydro, biofuels; literally anything that can be considered an alternative energy source is economically dependent on what is happening with the price and availability fossil fuels, most specifically oil. It’s business!
In the early 1980′s the oil business was anticipating price increases approaching $100 per barrel and, as you may recall, alternative sources of energy were going gang busters. The oil shale buzz in western
Colorado was fueling a real estate boom in Rifle and Parachute and the local economies were on fire for a time. And then it all went bust. Oil prices never rose as anticipated and without economic incentive the oil shale buzz went into hibernation along with most other alternative energy research. Houses sat vacant, plans for growth abandoned because the economy for growth no longer existed. Now with oil prices well over $100 (nearly 30 years later!) the towns of Grand
Junction, Rifle and Parachute are again reaping the economic benefits of both natural gas development and renewed interest in oil shale. This western slope example is just a simple little analog of what happens on a much broader, worldwide scale.
Political ads that portray oil companies as the evil empire are doing a significant disservice to our society and, while intended to lift their candidates profile as one who will battle the oil companies, in fact they highlight the ignorance of their candidates for not recognizing the necessary economic inter-dependence between oil, coal and all other forms of energy. Like it or not, fossil fuels are here to stay until alternatives become economically feasible and the timeline to economic feasibility is tightly entwined with the cost of a barrel of oil.
May I suggest that we, as a society, embrace and encourage the co-dependency of fossil fuels and energy alternatives? Intelligent development of our fossil fuels will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil as well as help to foster intelligent and timely development of alternative energies.
