[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Ration Oil During War

[Bill Totten]

Or, Is This a War on Conservation?

by Jan Lundberg

Culture Change e-Letter #32


If the US is waging a "War on Terrorism", federal energy policy would
reflect that the war is not a "war for oil".  Even if what we've had is
a war of terror (nothing new, if you ask Indo-Chinese victims of US
shock-n-awe), that's not exactly a war for oil.

As oil is a strategic commodity essential to the present economy and
military, then policies should be geared toward conserving oil.
Everyone knows they are not; little conservation has happened since
Jimmy Carter's tentative efforts.  A national paving moratorium was
proposed in 1990 in part to stop the lengthening of the nation's (oil)
supply lines in time of war (Operation Desert Storm).

If the US is truly not in Iraq and Afghanistan mainly for petroleum, and
petroleum in that part of the world is meant for those countries and the
whole world, then Gosh, the US has to start rationing oil now.  (Forget
for a moment the main reason to cut back: global warming is caused in
large part from petroleum emissions.)  One could point out that US trade
partners need oil too, or else the US goes down the tubes economically.
 But the US felt a domestic and world crisis, to insist on war on Iraq.
 Some say it was to keep Iraq from accepting Euros instead of dollars
for oil.

Approximately twenty million barrels a day of oil and refined products
are being sucked unsustainably from the finite Earth just for the USA's
burning and spilling the stuff.  Neither the oil industry nor its White
House acknowledges the impossibility of maintaining this rate.  Because
of free-market economists' ideology about the "creation" of supply, the
future is never more than ten years off in their practical planning.  As
for an oil crisis hitting hard in the first decade of this century, this
is not real to the oil fraternity because (1) it implies great change in
an industry that's not generally about energy; petroleum is unique and
specialized, and (2) it's the next quarterly report that really counts
in big business.

World War II was a war for oil, in large measure, considering Axis and
Allied aims and strategies.  And the Axis - which happened to ultimately
lose the war - was finally cut off from sufficient supplies of oil.  But
the US had to ration oil and other products so that it would not run out
during war.  What have we learned from our history?

Critical oil stats

The number of days of supply of immediately marketable crude oil for the
nation is only about seventeen, in terms of total supply already pumped
out in the US and having been imported.  This is a typical level.  That
statistic is derived from knowing there are about 278 million barrels of
crude now on hand, out of the ground, and almost sixteen million barrels
are used per day.   There is also about a month's worth of oil in the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which could be brought to surface,
refined and distributed.  All the SPR oil cannot be brought to market at
once; the idea is that an orderly drawdown could keep supply and demand
in balance for several months.  (The commonly assumed SPR scenario does
not solve a serious long-term shortage such as from declining global
reserves.)  As for petroleum products, mostly gasoline and diesel, there
is only about a week and a half supply in the US

Add the maximum available crude and refined products together, and you
have a little over two months of oil supply for driving, some heating,
and a few lesser energy uses in the US, if we assume the crude is
refined into fuels (over half of it is).

The bigger assumption is that domestic pumping and especially importing
will keep going "forever".  Fifty-eight percent is the level of oil
importation today - another reason for the attack on Iraq?

US gasoline consumption is well over nine million barrels (or over 400
million gallons) per day in summer.  Almost nothing is currently being
done to decrease this.  To the contrary, conservation is anathema to the
"conservatives" in control of the government. (See San Francisco
Chronicle op-ed "And when cheap oil runs out ... Enter the Age of
Conservation" by Jan Lundberg, May 6 2001 {1}.)

Vice President Cheney's and George Bush's opposition to the
environmental form of conservation is the key to understanding why
rationing is unthinkable to them today.  But if conservation were
thought of as war-oriented, it might have a chance to fly.  This way the
White House could also meet popular goals such as cutting greenhouse gas
emissions and reducing smog.  They can save face by saying the rationing
is just because of the never-ending war "on terrorism".  Emergencies are
also attractive to besieged rulers.  Not primarily because of petty
politics, Nixon put in oil price controls, and Bush could respond that
way to today's record gasoline prices.  Voila, never-ending rationing?

World War Two Rationing

The rationing system that worked in World War Two was sensible: an "A"
sticker on most cars allowed only three or four gallons to the driver
per week.  Privileged and critically needed drivers such as doctors got
other stickers and more gasoline coupons.  Feds busted people wasting
fuel, such as nailing them at concerts or night clubs.  There was black
market abuse of the system, but rationing worked to a large degree.
Speed limits were lowered to thirty miles per hour on highways.  Rubber
was suddenly unavailable from plantations in Southeast Asia, so the US
was rushing to refine petroleum into synthetic rubber before completely
running out; hence, make those tires last.

The nation during World War Two had some sensible leadership in regard
to oil policy, assuming the whole system of government and industry was
legitimate and evolving to something sustainable and compassionate.
(That assumption runs up against realities such as the oil-facilitated
US killing of five million Indo-Chinese.)  How does World War Two policy
compare with today?  The flag waving leaders today certainly have the
flag - and the weapons of mass destruction, the big money, and all the
oil they want (us) to guzzle.

What else was a hallmark of successful, patriotic conservation in World
War Two?  Victory Gardens and recycling!  New urban gardens enabled
depaved and ex-lawn spaces to become food production zones.  Waste
reduction featured reusing materials and parts instead of trashing them.
 Things could be fixed more easily than today, due to encroaching
computerization in cars, for example.

These conservation measures went in and stuck for the duration of the
war because of the threat to the nation.  Well, supposedly we are
threatened now!  So where's the conservation?  If there's no
conservation, what does that imply?

Why is the modern "conservative" - and even the liberal - usually
against conservation?  The main factor is individual "need", for not
just consuming all the oil that's convenient, but for profiteering on
oil-related, oil-fueled business.  Somebody wants a big motor vehicle
regardless of fuel economy, and the powers-that-be want that car-buyer
to succeed in that want!  The world almost has a gun to its head to buy
new motor vehicles.  In the US, this has by now translated to more
operable vehicles than drivers - a ratio of 1.9 personal cars in the
average household of 1.75 drivers.  Most consumers will not face the
fact that propaganda, brainwashing and employment policies do much to
rob us of free will and independent thinking.

On the other hand, if the Iraq War is really for oil and the "right" to
guzzle oil to no end, then it makes sense that the proponents of today's
war for oil would be in denial over any need for conservation.  With no
conservation or rationing, even though the White House and "intelligence
community" know the global peak in oil production is upon us, we can
with certainty say we are in a war for oil gluttony.  What a noble
purpose!  But lest we be too hard on them, these folk - counting any of
your neighbors too - can't imagine living simply and creating love and
peace, in their fearful and aggressive mind-set in the dominant
materialist culture.

When World War Two rationing and speed reduction kicked in, highway
crash deaths dropped by about two-thirds!  This kind of life-saving
opportunity, that President Bush doesn't yet seem to be aware of, could
save 25,000 lives a year on US roads today.  Does this not compare
favorably with the 3,000 American citizens killed on September 11 2001.
 Hello?  Are we about reducing casualties of the oil war or not?  Iraqi
civilians deaths this year have hit just over 37,000 (Village Voice,
September 3-9 2003).  That's almost as many US citizens who die in
highway crashes every year.  Those Iraqis can't be brought back, but
future US and other peoples' deaths can be avoided.

With some significant energy conservation in the US, many people around
the world wouldn't hate the US and its citizens so much.  Oil use is
equated to wealth.  The more oil we use the more the impoverished of the
world have violent feelings for US citizens and targets of US corporate
and military property.  These feelings are strongest among those
deprived of their ancestral lands in part because of US interventions.

But the response by a George Bush (either one) and his supporters is, in
effect, "Never!  Gimme more oil!"  With this kind of honesty (unlike the
Democrats), and such absence of sense and equity, shall we try something
else than muttering intellectual logic that calls for peace and driving
higher-tech cars (the sell-out enviros' big solution)?  Talk is cheap.

It is time for grassroots action to conserve.  Almost as much as
advocating car-free or minimized-car living, rationing would not be
popular.  But a one-term or lame-duck president could try rationing as
an Emergency measure.  At the rate George Bush is going, he could be on
his way to becoming a lame duck.  Despite his Enron scandal-taint, he
got a boost in popularity after 9-11 and attacked two countries with
devastating force which included depleted uranium.   However, what with
the growing backlash against the White House's/EPA's suppressing toxic
exposure-risk data in the Twin Towers' debris; what with the Iraq
guerrilla war; the record budget deficit of half a trillion dollars next
year; mistreatment of soldiers regarding their pay and occupation
conditions, constitutional rights being infringed, et cetera, Bush could
lose the 2004 election, assuming he is not impeached first.

If President Bush and his executive colleagues can keep being as
audacious and brazen as they have been - and they have gotten pretty far
with it - rationing of oil is on the same order of audacity and extreme
action.  Yet, saving lives and the atmosphere is admittedly a bit
radical to come of out Washington DC - DC stands for District of Crooks,
but anything's possible.  Only a lame duck or one-termer would try
serious conservation in times of plenty - plenty of oil, for now, and
plenty of oil-related death in both hemispheres.  Will oil profligacy
only stop when oil gets really tight in supply?  Judge for yourself as
to timing:

It is a world on the dawn of an historic oil crisis, perhaps the
greatest and final one.  The oil industry's M King Hubbert bequeathed to
us all the oilfield extraction curve named after him.  We're at the
global peak, and the downhill slide will not be like the easy climb:
when the market reacts and goes berserk, not even radical rationing will
work.  So, let's slash petroleum dependence beginning now, if the modern
world is to transition to the future of a lot less energy.

Energy alternatives are not ready and won't be, as long as oil is still
quite subsidized to be priced low.  Also, alternatives don't compare to
petroleum's energy punch and molecular flexibility.  (To understand peak
oil and how new oil discoveries and improved renewable energy technology
won't change basic trends that these conclusions are based on, see
Sustainable Energy Institute's webpages such as The Fall of Petroleum
Civilization {2} and alternative energy {3}.)

It's unlikely that the average North American, here in oil pig-out
heaven, will realize on his or her own that the oil war has been taking
place in our own homeland.  But, a few more of us can heed the call to
Can the car.  Let's also unplug our energy-wasting luxuries and go
outside into the natural world.  If it's not there, take the asphalt up
and plant some fruit trees.  And please watch the cat population which
is decimating the vanishing songbirds.  Peace!

Links

{1} http://www.culturechange.org/press_release6.htm

{2} http://www.culturechange.org/fall_of_petroleum_civilization.html

{3} file:///C:/My%20Documents/My%20Webs/cc-feb04/alt_energy.htm


_____

The author formerly provided the US Defense Fuel Supply Center, the
biggest oil consumer in the world, price information for its purchasing.
 Jan Lundberg formerly ran Lundberg Survey Incorporated which once
published "the bible of the oil industry".  He has run the Sustainable
Energy Institute since 1988.  It can use your assistance and generous help.

Jan Lundberg's columns are protected by copyright.  However,
non-commercial use of the material is permitted as long as full
attribution is given with a link to this website, and he is informed of
the re-publishing: info at culturechange.org
		
Culture Change mailing address: P.O. Box 4347 , Arcata , California
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Culture Change was founded by Sustainable Energy Institute (formerly
Fossil Fuels Policy Action), a nonprofit organization.

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