The Growing Oil Crisis

Author: Flor Ayag

THE “lifeblood” of every industrial nation is OIL, that is, petroleum. Without it many homes would go unheated in winter. There would be no gasoline for automobiles, trucks and tractors, or fuel for airplanes.

A host of electric appliances would not function without oil. Lights, ovens, washing machines, air-conditioners, television sets and many others would shut off. Why? Because much of the electricity used in the world today comes from generators fueled by oil.

Most machines depend on lubricants made from oil. Too, without oil a wide range of products would be affected. These include paints, plastics, synthetic fibers and rubber, fertilizers and others. Their production involves the use of oil.

Truly, if oil were no longer available, the economies of the industrial nations would grind to a halt in a matter of months! Even serious shortages would be severely damaging, as has been evidenced by what has happened since the Arab lands have cut down the amount of oil they were supplying other nations.

Which industrial nations are especially hard hit? An American official states: “An energy crisis of unprecedented dimensions today grips the whole world. It hits hardest at advanced industrial lands dependent on the Middle East as prime source of oil, among them the United States, Japan and the nations of western Europe.”

But why the crisis? Aside from the Arab cutoffs, was the world running out of oil? Would there still have been a shortage? Why are the Western nations and Japan so affected, and not the Communist lands?

Is Oil Running Out?

First of all, is the world’s supply of oil running out? No, there is not really a shortage of oil on this planet, as of now. True, if present usage continues, someday it could conceivably run out. But that is not the case now, for proved reserves are more than enough for the industrial nations for quite a few years yet.

However, there is indeed an oil crisis. One reason centers on the availability of the oil. In some places it is being used faster than new oil can be pumped out of the ground and refined into its various products. Any nation that uses more oil than it produces will have a problem. And the world is using it so fast that at times it has trouble getting enough from various sources. Time magazine says: “The world’s consumption of oil is increasing by 8% a year, and U.S. consumption, now nearly 40% of the total, is rising by 8.7%.”

This leads to the more fundamental problem: the largest oil users are often the ones that do not have large supplies within their borders. They are more often ‘oil poor,’ not having enough reserves within the ground that they can tap. The western European nations have hardly any oil pools at all within their borders. Japan has very little. And the United States has far less than it needs, with its oil fields tapering off due to overuse for many years.

So there is enough oil still under the ground to last large users such as western Europe, Japan and the United States several decades. But because they are using it so fast, and because the large reserves they need are not found within their borders, they have the problem of trying to get it from where it is available. That is not so easy.

Other Energy Sources?

However, are there not other sources of energy that the industrial nations of the West and Japan can use instead of oil? Why not atomic energy, natural gas, coal, water power, or even solar (sun) energy?

Such other energy sources have been used, or are under development. But none of them can fill the gap in energy requirements for the next ten to fifteen years at least. The demand for energy rises so fast that these other sources simply cannot provide enough at present. They can only supplement the use of oil, not replace it.

For instance, atomic energy has been hailed as a future major energy source. But it is not that as of now. Scientists do not expect it to be for at least another decade or two. Also, atomic energy is mainly used as a fuel for generators to make electricity. But can it fuel automobiles, tractors, airplanes? Not in the near future. So while atomic energy can generate electricity, and is doing so on a relatively small scale now, it does not solve the energy problem that exists today and that will worsen in the next few years. Also, there is the problem of radiation pollution that may jeopardize its use on more than a limited scale.

How about coal? Coal is abundant in many areas. It can be used as a fuel to turn generators making electricity. It can also be used for heating homes and in other ways. But to use it in such things as automobiles it must be converted to a liquid fuel. This is an expensive process. Oil is cheaper. Also, coal is generally regarded as a “dirty” fuel, a greater pollutant than “cleaner” oil. For this reason, in some areas where pollution standards have been set, it is not possible to use coal.

But is there not talk of large amounts of oil-containing rocks (known as shale) in the western United States? Also, how about the oil-containing sands of Canada? There is said to be billions of barrels of oil locked into those rocks and sands. True, but the cost of getting the oil out is far greater than the cost of merely pumping it directly from the ground. Entire industries would have to be developed to process the huge quantities that would be needed. It is not at all likely that this can or will be done in time to satisfy the growing demand for fuel.

What about water power? The building of dams along rivers harnesses the mighty power of water. But this is principally as a source of generating electricity. The descending water turns generators that make electricity. But such a source of energy is limited. It cannot fuel automobiles. It cannot provide lubricants for the machinery of industry. Also, in many lands the use of rivers and dams even for the generation of electricity is limited. That is why water power contributes only a small part of the total energy produced today. It will contribute an even smaller proportion in the near future as the energy demands soar.

Natural gas is also a desired energy source. But the nations of western Europe and Japan have little. In the United States, natural gas production is not likely to increase much, as new fields are harder and harder to find. Yet it is in these particular nations that the demand for energy fuels leaps ahead.

Is solar energy, the energy that can be harnessed from the sun, the answer? Someday—perhaps. But surely not in time to meet the growing crisis now.

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