Oil Boom or Bust

So we are in the middle of yet another boom.  Fracking, as declared by oil companies, is saving the planet.

This comes at considerable cost, with a consumer base who seemingly is capable of spending unlimited amounts on a gallon of gas, fracking is spreading in the United States.  Fracking is saving us?

And the news is good.  Fracking has resulted in American import  energy switching back to domestic supplies; at least for a few years.

Americans meanwhile buy the bullshit from Exxon and others that what is mined in America stays in America.  The truth is the only reason it stays in America is if Americans  pays staggering prices for it, versus the rest of the world.

Why is that, you might ask?  Simple economics.  Americans do not tolerate high taxes on energy.  The gasoline tax has remained constant for many years.  In Europe, almost half of the price of a gallon of diesel or gas is tax.  These taxes have, for decades, gone into mass transportation.  Europe, and much of Asia, have, as a result, a massively superior mass transportation system compared to the United States.

For example,  California is struggling against nay-sayers, trying in  a sea of lawsuits,  to build the nations FIRST high speed train.  Recently, a judge temporarily halted the program, and the oil company backed  opponents to the train cheered.

Asia and Europe have had high speed rail for decades.

Now, the oil companies are trumpeting that fracking will save us all.  There are huge oil reserves, they tell us, trapped in rock formations that will mean an oil glut.

What they are not telling us, is that Peak Oil, the economic point of view based on the fact that oil and gas reserves are finite, has told us for year that this could happen.

You see, oil companies have known  for decades about this.  In the 1970s, during the oil embargo, attempts were made to extract oil from shale in the Dakotas.  This expensive and dangerous procedure was abandoned when the oil embargo ended, because Americans refused to pay more than a dollar for a gallon of gas.

In Europe, even in the 70s, consumers were paying over a dollar, with at least half of it going through taxes into mass transportation and infrastructure.

Peak Oil experts have long known that for an old well, for example, 50% of the oil is still there, trapped in the surrounding shale and rock.  It was just too expensive to mine it; until now.

The difference is we are willing to pay way more for it; and tragically with still a relatively low tax load per gallon.

This has resulted in a temporary oil and gas glut, but at core prices that American consumers (still enslaved to a commuter lifestyle) that do not allow higher  taxes.

So, the United States may not have to import as much gasoline as in the last decade, and can purchase more expensive (than sweet crude) oil, even from the shale oil of Canada, with very little room for the taxation that could change us from a commuter transportation system to an energy efficient mass transportation one.

This failure to switch, which also affects failing to change to green energy, means America will be the first to have its economy destroyed when the inevitable, and irreversible decline in oil and gas occurs in 2050 and beyond.  There will be no fracking boom then to save us, and we will literally have to walk away from our cars, with no trains or buses as a fall back.

We are doing this to ourselves.  We should demand more taxes on gasoline and natural gas.  We should demand more mass transportation, and make the investment in our grandchildrens' futures to see that it happens.

We won't.  We will do what America has always done, exploit natural resources completely, then go try to conquer somebody else to get it.

Only this time, there will be no fracking to save us...We are running out of gas!  And this time, it is forever.