Government sponsorship of alternative energy development is a great idea for a number of reasons, but the following argument– which has been repeated ad nauseam by high-profile alternative energy proponents, most recently Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry in Friday’s Washington Post– is clearly invalid and thus does not help matters. To refute the claim that “drill, baby, drill” can be an effective energy policy, Boxer and Kerry cite the fact that “the United States has only 3 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, while we are responsible for 25 percent of the world’s oil consumption.” The implication seems to be that a country with n% of the world’s proven oil reserves can only sustainably consume up to n% of the world’s petroleum, but this implication makes no sense at all. The percentage contained in a country of the world’s proven oil reserves has no connection with that country’s highest sustainable percentage of worldwide oil consumption.

The two critical missing variables are the amount of oil remaining in the world’s reserves and the rate of worldwide oil consumption. The above relation is meaningless without these; with these, the relation ends up being irrelevant anyway.  If there is far more oil than we will use in centuries, we have no problem; if there is far less oil than we will use in the next fifty years, we have a huge problem. It turns out that the rate of consumption is fairly well-known, but there is still much debate over just how much accessible petroleum is left in the world– especially since improving oil-extracting technologies continue to make once-inaccessible reserves prime for extraction.

Why does it matter? Even at their least sinister, bogus arguments distract attention from truly important issues at the heart of the alternative energy debate. Does America’s consumption of oil– much of it foreign– have economic, ecological, and national security implications so critical that our national government should go further into debt pushing alternatives? If so, how much further? We know that subsidies yield results. In 2007, the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21, website) reported that worldwide renewable energy use doubled from 2004 to 2007 and that “Multilateral agencies and private investors alike are integrating renewable energy into their mainstream portfolios, capturing the interest of the largest global companies.” The “Key Findings” of a U.S. Department of Energy September 2008 report include very promising renewable energy growth statistics for the past decade (pages 3 and 4, here ). So we know we can develop alternative energy; the question is whether or not we should in the context of the above three considerations. Oft-repeated yet irrelevant relations like the one just discussed do not move the debate forward.

(Posted by Barry Slaff)