Telecommuting, we’ve written here repeatedly, can single-handedly do more to solve our energy crisis than all the other proposed measures combined. Transportation accounts for 70% of the oil we consume in the U.S.
Regardless of how we do it, we need to find a way to become independent of oil as an energy source. There’s a perfect storm of oil problems brewing. Let me describe how it develops and the havoc it wreaks when it hits. And it will.
First, the demand for energy grows. The world is consuming 10 billion liters a day right now. China, India and Asia are booming and demand is skyrocketing.
Then we discover that supply is drying up, or more accurately supply has been used up. Twenty years ago 15 oil fields produced more than 1 million barrles a day. Now there are four. Some oil fields in the U.S. and North Sea have been pumped dry, and fewer countries are producing it. More than half the world’s oil comes from just seven countries (Saudi Arabia, Russia, U.S., Iran, China, Mexico, and Canda in that order by production).
Then add some scullduggery by those countries. OPEC over the past two years, for example, has added Ecuador and Angola to their ranks to mask the decline in production by existing members. And what spare capacity oil producers have is gone as they cash in on soaring prices by extracting as much as they can.
Another example: someone has been hijacking tankers apparently just to learn how to operate them. A few years ago a ship was hijacked there, operated for several days by the hijackers, and then they left taking technical manuals. Why? Well imagine if you ran two of them together in the 1.7 mile wide Strait of Malacca, and they set the whole mess on fire.
Then something or someone disrupts things. An extraordinary hurriance season or winter cripples distribution or spikes demand. Or explosives blow up a pipeline, processing or distribution center. Or Gulf War III (or is it IV?) closes the Strait of Hormuz or Strait of Malacca, or shuts down the Saudia Arabian processing facility in Abqaiq or the Ras Tanura off-shore oil facility that handles 10% of the world oil. (Let’s assume the latter happens, to be not so hypothetical, in September/October right before the election so Republicans can ensure a former fighter pilot, not a ‘let’s talk’ presidential candidate, gets elected in a predictable spurt of nationalism.)
Then add a psychological avalanche. Countries, companies and individuals see supplies dwindling. The press, every willing to capitalize on bad news whips the issue into a worldwide crisis. Panic buying degenerates into a global grab, armed and otherwise, for oil. Oil prices blow past $300 a barrel and keep climbing.
Then the oil runs out. Terrorist attacks close production and distribution. Emergency reserves in the U.S. are depleted (we only have a 60 day supply—in salt caverns 2000 feet underground near the Gulf of Mexico.) When the oil runs out commerce stops. International trade stops. Workers can’t drive to work. Groceries don’t move from fields to stores. And then . . . ?
Anyone care to explain why we don’t have a mission-to-the-moon-style national priority to declare independence from oil? Why don’t we at the very least have a national telecommuting program?
Nevermind global warming.
