PAGE 22 J F3HIJKLM Sunday, November 22, 2009
OPINION
� S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S �
MAX D. LEDERER JR., PUBLISHER
JOHN D. PANASIEWICZ, GENERAL MANAGER
LT. COL. AUTUM WHALEN, COMMANDER
NEWS AND EDITORIAL
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PACIFIC
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� Stars and Stripes 2009
STARS AND STRIPES WEB SITE: WWW.STRIPES.COM
BY GEORGE F. WILL
WASHINGTON
W
hat city contributed most to the
making of the modern world? The
Paris of the Enlightenment and
then of Napoleon, pioneer of mass armies
and nationalist statism? London, seat of
parliamentary democracy and center of fi-
nance? Or perhaps Titusville, Pa.
Oil seeping from the ground there was
collected for medicinal purposes -- until
Edwin Drake drilled and 150 years ago
-- found the basis of our world, 69 feet
below the surface of Pennsylvania, which
oil historian Daniel Yergin calls "the Saudi
Arabia of 19th-century oil."
For many years, most oil was used for
lighting and lubrication, and the amounts
extracted were modest. Then in 1901, a
new well named for an East Texas hillock,
Spindletop, began gushing more per day
than all other U.S. wells combined.
Since then, America has exhausted its
hydrocarbon supplies. Repeatedly.
In 1914, the Bureau of Mines said U.S.
oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924.
In 1939, the Interior Department said the
world had 13 years worth of petroleum
reserves. Then a global war was fought
and the postwar boom was fueled, and in
1951 Interior reported that the world had
... 13 years of reserves. In 1970, the world's
proven oil reserves were an estimated 612
billion barrels. By 2006, more than 767 bil-
lion barrels had been pumped and proven
reserves were 1.2 trillion barrels. In 1977,
Scold in Chief Jimmy Carter predicted that
mankind "could use up all the proven re-
serves of oil in the entire world by the end
of the next decade." Since then the world
has consumed three times more oil than
was then in the world's proven reserves.
But surely now America can quickly
wean itself from hydrocarbons, adopting
alternative energies -- wind, solar, nucle-
ar? No.
Keith O. Rattie, CEO of Questar Corp.,
a natural gas and pipeline company, says
that by 2050 there may be 10 billion people
demanding energy -- a daunting pros-
pect, considering that of today's 6.2 billion
people, nearly 2 billion "don't even have
electricity -- never flipped a light switch."
Rattie says energy demand will grow 30
percent to 50 percent in the next 20 years
and there are no near-term alternatives to
fossil fuels.
Today, wind and solar power combined
are just one-sixth of 1 percent of American
energy consumption. Nuclear? The United
States and other rich nations endorse re-
ducing world carbon emissions 80 percent
by 2050. But Oliver Morton, a science writ-
er, says that if nuclear is to supply even just
10 percent of the necessary carbon-free
energy, the world must build more than 50
large nuclear power plants a year. Current-
ly five a year are being built. Rattie says
that as part of "a worldwide building boom
in coal-fired power plants," about 30 under
construction in America "will burn about
70 million tons of coal a year."
Edward L. Morse, an energy official in
Carter's State Department, writes in For-
eign Affairs that the world's deep-water oil
and gas reserves are significantly larger
than was thought a decade ago, and high
prices have spurred development of tech-
nologies -- a drilling vessel can cost $1
billion -- for extracting them. The costs of
developing oil sands -- Canada may con-
tain more oil than Saudi Arabia -- are de-
clining, so projects that last year were not
economical with oil under $90 a barrel are
now viable with oil at $79 a barrel.
Morse says new technologies are also
speeding development of natural gas
trapped in U.S. shale rock. The Marcellus
Shale, which stretches from West Virginia
through Pennsylvania and into New York,
"may contain as much natural gas as the
North Field in Qatar, the largest field ever
discovered."
Rattie says U.S. known reserves of natu-
ral gas, which are sure to become larger,
exceed 100 years of supply at the current
rate of consumption. BP recently an-
nounced a "giant" oil discovery beneath
the Gulf of Mexico. Yergin, writing in For-
eign Policy, says "careful examination of
the world's resource base ... indicates that
the resource endowment of the planet is
sufficient to keep up with demand for de-
cades to come."
Such good news horrifies people who
relish scarcity because it requires -- or
so they say -- government to ration what
is scarce and to generally boss people to
mend their behavior: "This is the police!
Put down that incandescent bulb and step
away from the lamp!"
Today, there is a name for the political
doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of ev-
erything except government. The name is
environmentalism.
George F. Will is a member of
Washington Post Writers Group.
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It's hard to rationalize rationing oil
HASAN JAMALI/AP
An oil pump works Nov. 13 in the Persian
Gulf desert field of Sakhir, Bahrain.

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