Is Oil an Addiction?

Merriam Webster defines "addiction" as follows:

compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly: persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful

So, is America addicted to oil? Is this a substance that we know is harmful? I don't think so. It is an energy source, nothing more and nothing less. Americans are not addicted to water even though we all drink the stuff daily. We are not addicted to food either. These are necessities of life, they are not the subject of an addiction. We need a source of energy to continue living above a stone age style. Remember, even cavemen had wood burning fires. Energy is essential to human life.

I am writing about this today after reading an article on Politico by retired brigadier general Steve Anderson in which he lauds the decision to stop the Keystone XL pipeline as a means to fight our addiction to oil. It is just wrong headed and foolish. The only result of squeezing the supply of energy to American consumers will be to raise the cost of living to a point where millions will suffer. Jobs will be lost and economic growth will be sacrificed as the cost of energy rises. If you doubt this, take a look at the California economy since that state mandated using major chunks of expensive "green" energy instead of fossil fuels. Growth is anemic in California despite the enormous advantages that the Golden State possesses. Businesses are moving out and heading to Texas or Nevada or some lower cost state. The middle class is squeezed and many, too, are leaving. Those left are either very rich or very poor. It is amazing that in California, the triumph of progressive environmentalism will be the creation of the very 99%-1% society that much of the progressive movement decries on a regular basis. There will only be the very wealthy and also the poor. Income equality will just go out the window. But I digress; let's get back to the Keystone pipeline.

The main points about the pipeline are these:

1) Completion of the pipeline will mean an addition of about three quarters of a million barrels of additional oil supply in the world each day. This amound would constitute close to ten percent of the oil imported into the USA. It would make our oil supplies much more secure. The additional supply would put downward pressure on world oil prices.

2) Completion of the pipeline will mean hundreds of thousands of jobs in the USA, both in constructing the pipeline and also in refining, transporting and using the oil and its products.

3) The discussions of the environmental effects of the pipeline are jibberish. Failure to build the pipeline only means that the oil will get sent instead to China. Chinese refineries are nowhere near as efficient and clean as American ones. In other words, if the pipeline is cancelled and the oil is sent to China, there will be more rather than less pollution. Further, the oil will get to China by tanker, a much more dangerous method of transport compared to the pipeline itself.

And while we are at it, let's talk about America's need for oil. I think it is safe to say that everyone would like to see an alternative to expensive imported oil. The answer, however, is not to make the imported oil more expensive as the general suggests. The answer is to find an alternative fuel like natural gas to power our vehicles. Oil, right now, is used mainly for vehicles and, to a lesser degree, home heating. Almost no electric power in the USA is generated from oil anymore. Alternative energy, however, has to be relatively inexpensive; all that moving from expensive oil to more expensive solar or wind will do is to send us back into another severe recession. We need to remember that the goal here is not to destroy the American economy or to punish the rich. The goal is to find a reasonably priced energy source on which we can all continue our life style. We just do not want to go back to the Stone Age or even to live like its 1900. The goal is get more for the people not to take things from them and force them to suffer for the "common good" as would be the case in the progressive ecology world.