Palinology: A Dinosaur Energy Policy

      

During last year's presidential campaign, Sarah Palin presented herself as an expert on energy. Her new book includes a chapter entitled "Drill, Baby, Drill," which encapsulates her argument that more domestic drilling is the answer to America's energy security problem.

God, according to Palin, put that oil underground for us to burn, she noted in a November 17 book tour interview with a fawning Rush Limbaugh.

Well ... unless Palin has a connection to the Almighty that the rest of us aren't privy to, it is presumptuous for her to pronounce so definitively on God's intentions regarding oil. Maybe God had other reasons for putting oil underground, such as keeping the carbon cycle in balance so that the atmosphere and oceans can support life as we know it. The lead article in the Spring 2009 edition of C.E.P. Quarterly explores this theological question in depth and can be viewed here.

For now, while the theologians ponder the question of God's plan for oil, let's explore another critical flaw in her argument that can be demonstrated empirically. "Drill, baby, drill" betrays a lack of understanding of how the global oil market works and the geopolitical disadvantage that America labors under as a result.

Gal Luft and Anne Korin, co-directors of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, put it this way in their new book, Turning Oil into Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice.

"Drill anywhere you want, the United States has merely 3 percent of the world's conventional oil reserve while consuming roughly a quarter of the world's supply. The same figures are true for natural gas. If we continue to play in the petroleum playing field, we will forever be dwarfed by the Arabs, Nigerians, Russians, and Venezuelans."

That suits the petroleum exporters just fine, and they work to keep it that way, as the authors explain. For every barrel of American oil that Palin would drag up from the wilderness, the OPEC gang would respond, as they have done for the past three decades, by leaving another barrel in the ground, keeping the quantity of oil traded in the world market about the same. America would remain vulnerable to the whims of petroleum potentates and to the disruptions that both man and nature wreak on the world oil market.

Consequently, Palin's plan would continue America's dependence on oil, perpetuating the U.S. economy's vulnerability to price shocks and supply disruptions. If we deplete our reserves in a rush to "drill, baby, drill," an ever larger share of the world's oil reserves would be controlled by countries that put their interests, not ours, first in line.

As Luft and Korin write, "While America is increasingly dependent on foreign oil, to the detriment of its national and economic security, making domestic drilling the linchpin of our energy policy will perhaps buy us a few more years of complacency in the driver's seat of our SUVs, after which we will be guaranteed to be in a world in which almost no oil can be found outside the Middle East."

You don't have to take only their word for it. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which includes the world's foremost experts on energy supply and economics, provides more evidence for how dangerous Palin's oil-heavy energy prescription would be for America.

The IEA's World Energy Outlook 2009 warns that as economic recovery takes hold and oil demand increases, especially in developing nations such as China and India, unfriendly countries would be in the driver's seat: "The increasing concentration of the world's remaining conventional oil and gas reserves in a small group of countries, including Russia and resource-rich Middle East countries, would increase their market power and ability to influence prices."

Further, in a field-by-field analysis of the world's oil production areas published last year, the IEA reported that oilfields with the highest rates of production declines are in North America. The lowest rates are in ... you guessed it ... the Middle East.

We can't say for certain what God wants us to do when it comes to oil. Neither can Sarah Palin. We can say for certain, however, what oil-exporting despots want us to do: stay hooked on oil, keeping us over their barrels, long into the future.