Oil prices have dropped to around $56 a barrel. T. Boone Pickens was on Fox this morning talking about delaying his push for alternative energy because oil and natural gas prices are too low to drive demand for wind farms. Mr. Pickens then went on to say he expects oil demand to exceed “peak oil” in the near future and prices to go back up.
If we know how hard it was, and we know we will be there again, why give up on the push for domestic drilling and alternative sources of fuel? Are our memories that short? Can you imagine dealing with the housing crisis and the large numbers of layoffs right now AND still paying $4+ per gallon? That would drive many more people past the breaking point.
I understand why Mr. Pickens isn’t pushing his wind farms anymore. There likely isn’t the political will to give him tax breaks and incentives for the project, nor are investors likely to be as ready to pony up as they were before (besides the fact that wind farms are woefully inefficient). But what about the rest of us? What’s our excuse? At some point, the backbreaking prices are going to come back, yet the emphasis in the media and around the water cooler is not focused on domestic energy production like it once was.
Unless something changes, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the last 30 years. If you wait until oil prices triple again, or some foreign enemy threatens our supply, it will be too late to start the movement again. We keep hearing that it will take ten years to fully tap into our domestic supplies. While that timeframe is patently ridiculous it does stress the point… why wait?
Americans need jobs. The American economy needs a push. There is still plenty of money to be made in domestic oil production and alternative souces of fuel. This must become and remain a national priority.
Ignoring the signs and being lax about threats allowed September 11th to happen. I argue that the this threat is no different. We can wait until supply and some foreign threat combine to bring our country to its knees, or we can learn from history and get to work on domestic production before it happens again.
When will we learn from our mistakes? Or will our children have to wage the same fight because we failed to do so?
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