Inflating Your Tires > Offshore Drilling
Posted on August 5, 2008
Filed Under Healthcare | 2 Comments
How out of touch is Barack Obama? He’s so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled “Barack Obama’s Energy Plan” to Washington reporters.
Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.
Holy shit, I thought it was a little crazy to think everyone inflating their tires would have a noticeable impact on our oil consumption, turns out if you do the math it would actually be better than offshore drilling, without any risk to the environment. If that’s not killing 2 birds with 1 stone I don’t know what is.
What’s great about Obama’s energy plan is that this is only the start, just like he mentioned unplugging things when you’re not using them. Even if we offshore drilled, checked our tire pressure and take all our cars into the mechanic it’s not going to rid ourselves of foreign oil anytime soon, but at least the tire pressure wouldn’t negatively impact anything.
The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: we can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle.
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2 Responses to “Inflating Your Tires > Offshore Drilling”
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I just ran across this interesting article “Drill Here, Drill Now,” that delivered a number of interesting points about offshore drilling. One interesting fact is that 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America’s ocean floors each year, compared to the average 6,555 barrels that oil companies have spilled annually since 1998. It’s an interesting article and i suggest you read it.
The problem with that is that 620,500 ozze over a period of a year and over the entire ocean. When 700,000 gallons of oil ooze into an area about a square mile in a matter of minutes the environmental impact is greater.
The risk to our planet is too great, we don’t need to save 2 cents a gallon on gas 10 years from now.