May 02, 2010
In discussing the oil spill off the coast of Loiusiana the NYT told readers: “the country needs the oil — and the jobs.” The basis for this assertion is not clear.
What is presumably at issue is the prospect of further drilling in currently protected areas. According to the Energy Information Agency, the potential yield from these areas is in the range of 200,000 barrels a day. This is equal to about 1 percent of U.S. oil consumption and around 0.2 percent of world oil consumption.
This amount of oil would have no notable impact on U.S. energy independence. (Actually, in a world where we can freely buy oil on world markets, from the standpoint of concerns about energy indepedence, it would make more sense to leave the oil in the ground so that it can be used if we actually are cut off from world markets.)
This amount of oil would have a trivial impact on oil prices, meaning that no one will notice a lower price at the pump because we open these areas to oil drilling. The jobs created directly by the drilling would also be trivial and would be dwarfed by a few days’ job growth in a healthy economy. (The jobs would only come years down the road, since much exploration would have to precede major drilling.)
So, there is no apparent basis for the NYT’s assertion about the need for drilling.
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