Sunday, May 2, 2010

Good suggestions from The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/its-time-for-a-moratorium-on-oil-itself/39789/

Lisa Margonelli
Lisa Margonelli - Lisa Margonelli is a writer on energy and environment. She spent four years and traveled 100,000 miles to write her book, "Oil On the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank."
Lisa Margonelli directs the New America Foundation's Energy Productivity Initiative, which works to promote energy efficiency as a way of ensuring energy security, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and economic security for American families. She spent roughly four years and traveled 100,000 miles to report her book about the oil supply chain, Oil On the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank, which the American Library Association named one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007. She spent her childhood in Maine where, during the energy crisis of the 1970s, her family heated the house with wood hauled by a horse. Later, fortunately, they got a tractor. The experience instilled a strong appreciation for the convenience of fossil fuels.

It's Time for a Moratorium on Oil Itself

May 2 2010, 9:54 AM ET
The oil spill in the Gulf is horrific and it's very likely it'll get worse. While locals get to work scrubbing the oiled birds with Dawn dish detergent,  a fracas will begin in Washington. Generally speaking this is an opera called "The Punishment," and for the last two major oil spills of great political  consequence (Santa Barbara in 1969 and the Exxon Valdez in 1989) it involved  a moratorium on drilling somewhere in the US. The problem with this, as I lay out in an op-ed in today's New York Times, is that we basically shift drilling and  its risks to other countries. (The figure that the Niger Delta, roughly the size of England, has suffered the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez of spilled oil every year since 1969 ought to make us cry.)

This time we need to use the political will generated by this really awful event to implement a comprehensive plan to reduce American dependence on oil.

Off the top of my head, here are a few possible places to start (and feel free to add your own
below).

We could begin to reduce oil dependence immediately with some of the measures suggested in this 2005 International Energy Agency report called Saving Oil In A Hurry. (Download a PDF here.)

A very diverse group (of which I am a recent member) called the Coalition for Mobility Choice has a 10-point plan to reduce oil dependence through various policies. Deron Lovaas of NRDC gave detailed testimony before a Senate Committee in March. (Download PDF here.) The basic package of policy changes he recommends could save 2 to 3 million barrels a day by 2020, and much more if we accelerated fuel economy standards for cars.

We could save even more if we started to use natural gas trucking, which has impressive numbers for both fuel savings and pollution in this Center For  American Progress study.

What would we gain by implementing the Oil Consumption Reduction Act? (Got something catchier? Please post below.)

First, we'd stop the financial hemorrhage that oil dependence causes. Today we'll spend well more than $1.07 billion on oil. And prices are up over Tom Kloza's estimates of $2.81 to $2.885 today.

Secondly, we'll reduce the risk of spills, accidents, and blowouts that every gallon carries.

Thirdly, we'll reduce the greenhouse gases emitted by the burning oil.

Fourthly, we'll reduce the pollution, and the costs of dealing with the health effects of breathing oil pollution. See last week's report from the American Lung Association.

Fifthly, we might reduce the amount of time we spend in traffic. (Los Angeles commuters spend nearly two work weeks sitting in traffic every year. Bizarre.)

Sixthly, we'll reduce the amount of energy we spend defending oil shipping lanes and other oil related military projects.

Seventhly, we'll increase our competitiveness by increasing our ability to turn energy into GDP. We'll also start markets for energy efficient and clean technologies.

Eighthly, because times of national crisis are priceless opportunities to air a pet peeve: we could ban gasoline-powered leaf blowers, which consume 200 million gallons of gasoline a year. (Go to Table 2.10 in ORNL's Transportation Energy Data Book to geek out on energy consumption by lawn and garden equipment.)

Showing 5 comments





  • candide08 1 hour ago
    1 person liked this.
    Whether this turns out to be negligence or an accident almost does not matter.
    "Drill, baby, drill" is dead.



  • Just like "too big to fail" is now dead?

    Never underestimate the ability of the government to throw common sense under the bus to make way for corporate cronyism.



  • 1 person liked this.
    Your points are valid, Govt rarely uses common sense. Even this incident shows the lack of common sense in Govt.

    Norway and Brazil require that ALL offshore oil rigs have special valves designed to prevent just the type of disaster we are experiencing now. This would be the least, IMO, that should be done.

    The valves only cost $500,000. In comparison to the clean-up cost even BP MUST wish that they had them in place. In 2002 and 2003 when legislation was proposed to make installation of these valves a a legal requirement for offshore oil rigs here in the United States the proposal got defeated in Congress.

    No doubt the result of the oil lobby had a key role in this. Having oil industry allies like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney didn't hurt either. We now bear the consequences of not having these safeguards.




    Jack Miller  
    The ban on gas powered leaf blowers that really blow nothing but dirt and debris most of the year is long overdue. The noise and air pollution these gadgets cause is contributing to many health problems as well as wasting gasoline. Banning them will raise the ire of so called landscapers who rake in huge profits from the unskilled labor of walking around with a loud blower on.
    Join a group that works to oppose their use: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=154069...
    or http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=588408...
     

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