The U.S. consumes 400 million gallons of gasoline every day [1]. That amounts to almost 5,000 gallons every second. More than half of that oil is imported.
Everything we do is affected by oil. In addition to keeping us warm and transporting us, we eat oil. Not literally, but the average American meal travels an about 1500 miles [2] to get from farm to plate.
If there were an interruption in the oil supply, we would look to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That much-cited U.S. reserve, however, holds only a 60-day supply of oil. It is official U.S. policy, then, that We the People shall always remain only small one incident from a major oil crisis.
A rational society operates with headroom. It makes certain that when there is any sort of foreseeable incident (such incidents are inevitable), sufficient resources exist to stave off crises. A rational society operates like a Tetris game in the opening stages, where the player has time and resources available to make the necessary adjustments:
A rational society provides this headroom by outlawing wasteful vehicles such as SUV’s and large non-commercial pickup trucks. A rational society heavily regulates the energy efficiency of factories and residences. A rational president takes the bully pulpit and to clearly tells everyone that we are in post-peak-oil [3]. He advises the people that a massive restructuring of our economy is necessary to make our economy less vulnerable to restricted oil supplies and price gouging. The rational president tells the people that the clock is ticking and gives details about what must be done in 1 year, 5 years and 10 years.
An irrational society continuously strains oil resources and operates only under best-case presumptions. An irrational society fails to provide for headroom. Small incidents (including expected incidents) throw irrational societies into frenzy and disarray. An irrational society operates like a Tetris game in its last desperate moments. There is no margin for error and any little thing could end the game. We have to be perfect, repeatedly and forever, or else:
U.S. oil policy is irrational. In the U.S., we’re nonchalently playing those last few moments of oil-Tetris every day. Such a plan functions only a under the best-case scenario where 5,000 gallons of oil somehow keep gushing every second.
We’ve already seen what happens to the market when a hurricane damages the refineries near a single city: New Orleans. This same market disruption would no doubt happen if a terrorist organization blew up a major pipeline, refinery or oil tanker. It would also happen if oil producers again banded together (as they did in 1974) and it would once again bring oil consumers to their knees. The stakes are immense. An oil crisis endangers ordinary citizens by depriving them of heat, transportation, food and jobs.
Dispite these dangers, official U.S. policy is that our oil supply will always remain fragile and that the citizens and economy will remain vulnerable to foreseeable irregularities affecting the oil supply. Let’s see: fragil oil supply, no substitute energy source, massive oil waste and no meaningful national dialogue.
We undoubtedly have the best government that corporate money can buy.
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