Roller Coaster Rides: A number of years ago, when my daughter was still in high school, she asked me to give her a ride to school. I refused. She had gotten up at 6:30 a.m. and began preparing for classes that started at 8:00 a.m. She had turned on her stereo and she was dancing to the music - I could tell that she was doing that because the ceiling above me was moving up and down quite visibly. And she had lost complete track of time. Suddenly, just a few minutes before eight o'clock, she stood in the living room and asked me for a ride to school. I shook my head no. "But, I'll be late if you don't take me, Dad," she said. I thought about that for a moment or two. We lived less than a city block from the high school. If one walked at a leisurely pace, it would take perhaps three minutes to walk to school. My daughter, who set seven school records in Track, could easily run to that school in less than one minute. It would take me longer than that to get the car out of the garage and drive her to school. I told her I wouldn't take her. "I'll be late," she reminded me. "Yes," I said, "and the longer you stand here and talk to me, the later you're going to be." She turned on her heel, muttered "Whatever!", and ran out the front door. I stood on the front porch and timed her. It took her 37 seconds to run to school.
When crude oil prices peaked at $147 per barrel on 11 July 2008, we often heard discussions about drilling for oil in Alaska (and elsewhere). And the constant rejoinder to that suggestion was this: "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years." Frankly, I do not understand the logic of that kind of response. What does lead-time have to do with the efficacy of drilling for oil?
Suppose, for example, that I told that little girl who lives next door - who graduated from high school just a month ago - that it would be silly for her to enroll in the University because it would take her four or five or six years for her to get her degree. Would that be a serious objection to getting a college degree? Few would have a problem with the amount of time it would take to secure that college degree.
Or, take this example. My son-in-law, an emergency room pediatric physician, was reflecting one day on the years of schooling, internships, and residencies it took him to get to his present status in life. Counting the time he spent in grade school, high school, college, medical school, residency, internships, and the three-year fellowship for his pediatric emergency medicine specialty, it took him 28 years of study and preparation. Twenty-eight years! Would any serious person in the world find something so objectionable with that length of time that they would torpedo the very process that got him there? Would any serious person in the world say, "Hell, even if he started studying today, we wouldn't get an ER pediatrician for another 28 years"?
Give me a break. The longer we stand here and talk about drilling for oil (or going to college), the later we’re going to be. Tell me why we have to apply the Roller Coaster Test to every discussion about drilling for oil. When we talk about drilling for oil, why do we rule out any activity that lasts longer than a four-minute ride on a roller coaster in an amusement park? Just how much lead-time is really acceptable? If we got the oil in two months, could we begin drilling tomorrow? No? How about four months? Or two years? Or six years? Or eight years? Other than four minutes, how much time would you allow? Or, is your entire objection to drilling for oil based on your hatred of our economic system? What, exactly, is your problem?
Forgive me, but it is a pathetically stupid argument to say, "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years." If you applied that same logic to other areas of daily life, you’d never start the oven to bake your meatloaf or make the effort to put a man on Mars.
The Hood Ornament Diversion: Closely allied to the Roller Coaster Ride argument is the Hood Ornament Diversion. Every single time they say, "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years," they follow that line of argument with this red-herring statement: “Instead, we ought to be investing in wind, solar, biofuels, and alternate energy sources.” Huh? You want me to put a windmill on my SUV? You want me to install some kind of hood ornament on the vehicle to get me past the gas station? You want to address the high price of gasoline by installing solar panels on my internal combustion engine automobile? How will these alternate energy items help to alleviate the price of gasoline? My SUV runs on gasoline, not wind or electrical power. In fact, the entire U.S. economy runs on gasoline and diesel fuel.
The weaners ("We have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels") want us to build alternate energy sources to power the economy. In itself, that's probably not a bad idea. Yet, there are few who are actually prepared to accept the real implications of that Pollyanna change-over suggestion.
Consider this: the nascency of an interstate highway system in the United States began with the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. For the last 93 years this country has been engaged in building and/or repairing federal highways. In Chicago - a particularly unique and egregious case - they have been working on the roads since the last Ice Age. If some sharp economist were to tally the cost of building all those roads and bridges and highways since 1916, the total might well be into the trillions of dollars. If that same economist tallied the total cost of all the motor vehicles in United States - both internal combustion and diesel engine vehicles - along with all the infrastructure necessary to operate those vehicles, viz., the tanker trucks, the gasoline stations, the auto parts stores, etc., what do you suppose the total might be? $10 trillion? $20 trillion? $30 trillion? Pick a number and run with it. I won’t quibble. Whatever the exact number is, it is an astonishingly high number. You can count on that.
What the weaners are actually telling us is this: abandon all of that infrastructure and build something different. Throw the $30 trillion away. Junk your SUV. Bulldoze the oil refineries. And ride the inter-urban electric train instead. Cool. After 50 or 60 years of construction, you might have the rails laid and enough trains to put on them to ride from coast to coast. Oh, and I almost forgot: it'll cost you another $20 trillion to make all of that happen. $20 trillion!
Let's see. "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years." Okay. So, let's go with some alternative energy source that will take 50 or 60 years to put together and cost us a cool $20 trillion. Yeah.
And you thought I was dumb?
When crude oil prices peaked at $147 per barrel on 11 July 2008, we often heard discussions about drilling for oil in Alaska (and elsewhere). And the constant rejoinder to that suggestion was this: "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years." Frankly, I do not understand the logic of that kind of response. What does lead-time have to do with the efficacy of drilling for oil?
Suppose, for example, that I told that little girl who lives next door - who graduated from high school just a month ago - that it would be silly for her to enroll in the University because it would take her four or five or six years for her to get her degree. Would that be a serious objection to getting a college degree? Few would have a problem with the amount of time it would take to secure that college degree.
Or, take this example. My son-in-law, an emergency room pediatric physician, was reflecting one day on the years of schooling, internships, and residencies it took him to get to his present status in life. Counting the time he spent in grade school, high school, college, medical school, residency, internships, and the three-year fellowship for his pediatric emergency medicine specialty, it took him 28 years of study and preparation. Twenty-eight years! Would any serious person in the world find something so objectionable with that length of time that they would torpedo the very process that got him there? Would any serious person in the world say, "Hell, even if he started studying today, we wouldn't get an ER pediatrician for another 28 years"?
Give me a break. The longer we stand here and talk about drilling for oil (or going to college), the later we’re going to be. Tell me why we have to apply the Roller Coaster Test to every discussion about drilling for oil. When we talk about drilling for oil, why do we rule out any activity that lasts longer than a four-minute ride on a roller coaster in an amusement park? Just how much lead-time is really acceptable? If we got the oil in two months, could we begin drilling tomorrow? No? How about four months? Or two years? Or six years? Or eight years? Other than four minutes, how much time would you allow? Or, is your entire objection to drilling for oil based on your hatred of our economic system? What, exactly, is your problem?
Forgive me, but it is a pathetically stupid argument to say, "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years." If you applied that same logic to other areas of daily life, you’d never start the oven to bake your meatloaf or make the effort to put a man on Mars.
The Hood Ornament Diversion: Closely allied to the Roller Coaster Ride argument is the Hood Ornament Diversion. Every single time they say, "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years," they follow that line of argument with this red-herring statement: “Instead, we ought to be investing in wind, solar, biofuels, and alternate energy sources.” Huh? You want me to put a windmill on my SUV? You want me to install some kind of hood ornament on the vehicle to get me past the gas station? You want to address the high price of gasoline by installing solar panels on my internal combustion engine automobile? How will these alternate energy items help to alleviate the price of gasoline? My SUV runs on gasoline, not wind or electrical power. In fact, the entire U.S. economy runs on gasoline and diesel fuel.
The weaners ("We have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels") want us to build alternate energy sources to power the economy. In itself, that's probably not a bad idea. Yet, there are few who are actually prepared to accept the real implications of that Pollyanna change-over suggestion.
Consider this: the nascency of an interstate highway system in the United States began with the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. For the last 93 years this country has been engaged in building and/or repairing federal highways. In Chicago - a particularly unique and egregious case - they have been working on the roads since the last Ice Age. If some sharp economist were to tally the cost of building all those roads and bridges and highways since 1916, the total might well be into the trillions of dollars. If that same economist tallied the total cost of all the motor vehicles in United States - both internal combustion and diesel engine vehicles - along with all the infrastructure necessary to operate those vehicles, viz., the tanker trucks, the gasoline stations, the auto parts stores, etc., what do you suppose the total might be? $10 trillion? $20 trillion? $30 trillion? Pick a number and run with it. I won’t quibble. Whatever the exact number is, it is an astonishingly high number. You can count on that.
What the weaners are actually telling us is this: abandon all of that infrastructure and build something different. Throw the $30 trillion away. Junk your SUV. Bulldoze the oil refineries. And ride the inter-urban electric train instead. Cool. After 50 or 60 years of construction, you might have the rails laid and enough trains to put on them to ride from coast to coast. Oh, and I almost forgot: it'll cost you another $20 trillion to make all of that happen. $20 trillion!
Let's see. "Even if we started drilling today, we wouldn't get any oil for ten years." Okay. So, let's go with some alternative energy source that will take 50 or 60 years to put together and cost us a cool $20 trillion. Yeah.
And you thought I was dumb?
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