Drill Where? Drill When? Drill Why?

The biggest debate around energy right now seems to be whether the United States should increase domestic oil drilling. Some of the loudest voices on one side of this debate are not being entirely honest.

Let's cut to the chase:

The United States currently consumes almost 30% of the world’s annual oil production (based on total world oil production as per the DoE and U.S. oil consumption as per the CIA World Fact Book).

The United States contains about 2% of the world's oil reserves.

Clearly, we will not meet our energy needs long term simply by exploiting our domestic oil reserves. But let's dig into the numbers a more deeply:

Let's suppose that we currently used no domestic oil at all, that our energy use remained flat, and that we could immediately exploit all of our domestic reserves. (Remember those assumptions; we'll come back to them later.) We would increase our oil supply by less than 10%. Given that gas prices are up more than 20% in the last year, that doesn't sound like it would lead to the great savings your wallet has been promised, does it?

(The same guy who tells us to "drill here, drill now" also lobbied for a federal gas tax holiday. The tax currently amounts to about 5% of the price of a gallon. Again: prices are already up 20% in the last year. Where are the savings?)

The situation only becomes more stark. Let's revisit those assumptions from before:

1. Domestic energy production. In fact, we already extract significant oil domestically. However, domestic reserves are falling; we're using them up. From the DoE:

   The U.S. is the most intensely explored and developed oil-productive nation on Earth. In 1986 there were 623,000 producing oil wells with an average daily production rate of 13.9 barrels of oil. By 1995, both the number of producing wells and their quality had declined. Eight percent fewer wells (574,000) were producing at an average daily rate of 11.3 barrels of oil (down almost 19 percent).

2. Domestic energy use. Energy use per capita in the United States has increased slowly but mostly steadily (with brief decreases corresponding to national recessions) since about 1980 -- that is, since the end of the last significant middle east oil crisis. Moreover, U.S. population is increasing. If nothing changes, we will use more energy next year than this year, still more the following year, and so on.
   
3. Prospect for exploitation. Increased domestic drilling will not impact supply in any significant way even in the short term. Deciding to expand drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf today, for example, would not yield a drop of new oil for several years. Furthermore, the increased production (based on the average of government and industry estimates compared to CIA World Fact Book data on current U.S. production) would amount to only a 7% increase in domestic production.
   

The push for increased domestic oil drilling is a distraction. It will have no impact on supply or prices in the short term (one to three years), very minimal impact in the medium term, and cannot hope to satisfy our needs in the long term. It's time for our national leaders to be straight with us. For the sakes of our wallets, our security, and our environment, we need alternative sources of energy. Why wait?