by David Sassoon -
Jul 1st, 2008 
The energy discussion took a great leap forward today with the release of a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Senator McCain and President Bush have recently called for oil drilling in offshore US waters as a solution to high gas prices. So the report examines whether drilling would make a difference at the pump and compares it to the impact of increasing the fuel economy of automobiles.
No surprise -- drilling for oil would have no effect on gas prices. That's according to the Energy Information Administration:
The Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects that Senator McCain's proposal would have no impact in the near-term since it will be close to a decade before the first oil can be extracted from the currently protected offshore areas.
The EIA projects that production will reach 200,000 barrels a day (0.2 percent of projected world production) at peak production in close to twenty years. It describes this amount as too small to have any significant effect on oil prices.
But what if US autos had become more fuel efficient over the last 20 years, slowly but steadily? A lot of savings at the pump and a whole lot of oil no longer needed -- about 3 million barrels a day less. The lost opportunity is astounding in magnitude, and points to a better way toward energy security.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
