In early February the Sea Empress, an oil tanker, ran aground off the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales. By the time it was freed it had released 65,000 tons of crude oil into the Celtic Sea. That's almost twice as much as was released by the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound. Worse, the spill occurred in an area whose coast is a national park and whose islands are a sanctuary for wildlife. It may take decades for the ecosystems there to recover fully from this disaster.
I often wonder how long it will take for us to get fed up with the consequences of the world's addiction to oil.
Spills are one of the more gruesome results of our reliance on oil, and they happen more often than you might think. On Jan. 19, an oil barge was grounded off Rhode Island, spilling oil near a wildlife refuge, a bird sanctuary, and several beaches. It was the largest spill in the state's history. Although the big ones get most of the attention, hundreds of spills occur in the world's oceans every year, causing immeasurable damage to shorelines and wildlife. As terrible as the Valdez spill was, it accounted for only 8 percent of all the oil spilled in tanker accidents that year.
Here at home, our oil dependency forces us to import huge quantities of it, contributing $50 billion a year to our trade deficit. Because our own reserves are becoming depleted, we have to import half the oil we burn. And don't forget that much of the oil we import comes from one of the most politically turbulent regions in the world. The 1973 oil crisis left little doubt of how vulnerable we are to interruptions in our oil lifeline. The Gulf War was another telling example of how far we sometimes have to go to protect our oil supply.
Some use this danger to our security as an argument for boosting domestic oil production. One controversial instance of this is the attempt by several Congressmen to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. The Refuge, the last pristine stretch of Alaska's North Slope, is so full of wildlife it is widely known as "America's Serengeti." Geologists have estimated that there is only a 20 percent chance of finding enough oil to power America for six months. Clearly, turning the Refuge into another Prudhoe Bay, with its drilling pads, waste dumps, and pipelines, would do little to ensure our energy security. Why carve up the places we love in pursuit of such diminishing returns?
Other repercussions of our oil habit can be more subtle and pernicious than just the direct fouling of ecosystems. Nitrogen oxides emitted from the tailpipes of our gasoline-powered cars cover our cities with blankets of unhealthy smog. They also waft up into the atmosphere, where they form some of the acid rain which kills off lakes and ponds and alters nutrient cycling in forests. The carbon dioxide produced by burning oil and coal is steadily building up in the atmosphere. The majority of climate scientists believe that this is causing planetary warming, with consequences virtually impossible to predict.
So what, you may say. All this is no problem. We'll build better engines and pollution control devices that eliminate nitrogen oxides. New exploration techniques will allow us to drill in the Refuge with minimal environmental impacts. There would be a lot fewer oil spills if everyone used tankers with double hulls.
Maybe, (and I mean maybe), but all our technological prowess can't change the fact that oil is ultimately a limited resource. Despite the assurances of the oil industry that we still have plenty of oil, it is indisputable that there is only so much out there, and there is less of it every single day. The oil is going to run out sooner or later and, at the rate we're using it, probably sooner. US oil consumption reaches new heights every year, as evidenced by the increasing number of cars, especially gas-guzzling utility vehicles, on the roads. As we burn more and more oil, we necessitate more imports and make all the other problems worse. And we push oil reserves that much closer to exhaustion.
Fortunately, alternative sources of energy are ready when we are. Renewable sources such as solar and wind power are capable of providing energy in perpetuity because they are derived from the sun. Technological advances have lowered prices of renewable energy sources to the point where they will soon be competitive with fossil fuels like coal and oil. Renewable energy also has few of the environmental problems of oil and can be produced domestically.
Energy efficiency has the potential to cut U.S. energy consumption in half. We'd save much more energy by raising fuel economy standards on automobiles than we'd ever find under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. By using less energy, we can ease the strain on our energy resources, and reduce the environmental impact of our activities. Efficient technologies, from mass transit to better insulation to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, will also buy us the time we need to make a smooth transition to renewable energy sources.
One way or another, we had better be ready -- for when the oil does run out, or for when we finally decide oil just isn't worth the trouble.
