Everyone, please stop conflating “oil” with “energy”.
Every day on NPR I hear some news story about how McCain wants to “increase the energy supply” and that Obama “doesn’t think we need more energy”, or some paraphrase of crap like that.
I’m disgusted that we, as a society, continue to fall for these simple word substitutions. There’s plenty of “energy” in the world, we’re just not doing anything with it. For example, the american southwest receives enough solar radiation to power the entire country, but we just let it bake the sand.
The 3 common types of energy use in the US are:
- Fuel (gasoline, diesel, coal, natural gas, etc.) burned in an engine (piston, turbine, or any other internal or external combustion), and used for motive force (a car, truck, plane, train, etc.).
- Fuel burned as a direct source of heat (a water heater, furnace, wood or coal burning stove, a gas oven, etc.)
- Fuel burned in an engine connected to a magneto, and used to produce electricity.
- Alternative sources of electricity. For example: solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear, etc.
When they say “there’s an energy shortage” what they’re saying is “there’s a shortage of conventional fuel” or, “fuel supply is lower than demand, and therefore, prices have risen.” What they neglect to mention is my point #4 above: Energy does not always come from fuel! We have become far too focused on conventional means of energy production!
So, every time you hear the word “energy” in the news, you should substitute it in your head with “fuel”, and you should think about how many people profit when you pump a tank full of light sweet crude into your car.
When you hear “energy prices are high” you should think “fuel prices are high” which is a more correct characterization of the situation, and focuses on the crux of the matter: Fuel used for transportation of goods. (Gasoline and Diesel, to be exact). These are the main commodity prices that have risen. Costs for other sources of energy (solar, wind, etc.) are actually falling. In other words, alternative good, conventional bad.
What McCain wants is more oil, and I wish the news agencies (including NPR) wouldn’t fall for his simple substitution language. I’m just waiting for the day that McCain says something like “we need to drill for more energy.” You don’t “drill for energy”, you drill for oil, which you then burn to turn into energy, and this is not the only source of energy. Get it straight.