If the assumptions on available oil reserves off Florida prove to be almost 4 billion barrels, this number should be seen against our current consumption levels of 8 billion barrels a year. Thus, it would equal a mere six months' worth of consumption. We need to get away from the concept of burning oil. It is too valuable to waste in this manner. Given that the entire U.S. reserves are something south of 40 billion barrels (drilling ALL of it), we are reaching the end. Yet the cry for cheap gas continues, even as Europe wisely taxes it heavily to avoid the waste that we take as a human right.


Foreign oil only adds to the growing flow of U.S. dollars paid to import from an increasingly hostile world. With most U.S. oil consumption NOT being used as a transportation fuel, one must consider what life would be like without oil given the vast and ubiquitous higher value uses for this versatile mineral. Look at what is around you...what is not made of wood, glass or metal is probably made from oil. We will, in our lifetimes, look back on these days and wonder why we burned such a valuable mineral much like we look back wishing we still had the vast oil resources in the USA already squandered at under $1 a barrel.


Republicans get riled that ARRA deficits would be a burden on their grandchildren but unconcerned that we might use up every last drop of oil well before those grandchildren need it, while at the same time destroying the planet and our ability to feed it. We are on a lifeboat with limited supplies. The hero is NOT the one consuming supplies like at a banquet.


There is not a lack of energy on this planet. Every day we are bathed in far more than we could conceivably utilize. We have only to harvest this energy using wind and solar, with geothermal as our base load supplement. Then our grandchildren will live in a clean and sustainable world. The time is now, the opportunities are endless. OIL is NOT.


Barry Fitzgerald
 

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