So with my declared interest out of the way, its time for a rambling rant about something that has a tendency to irritate me. This is the oil industry, or more precisely, the reaction most green eco-warriors have towards it.
Not a popularist argument then?
I, along with most people of my generation who have some sort of political consciousness, have grown up with one simple equation in mind: Oil=Evil. Isn’t it about time we dispelled this overblown simplicity?
First let’s get the big one out of the way - Global Warming. I don’t deny it, anymore than I deny evolution or isotope fractionation or any other scientific fact. I don’t deny that atmospheric CO2 is a major cause, or that the current rise in CO2 is a result of human activity. CO2 causes Global Warming, burning hydrocarbons releases CO2. Simple.
Or it would be, if burning crude oil was the only worthwhile thing to do with it. Well known, but often overlooked, is that hydrocarbons are one of the most versatile chemicals known to mankind. Looking round the room I’m in now, I’d estimate that it’s 50% hydrocarbon, if not more. Plastics make up the bulk of this, but then there’s other derivatives including waxes, cosmetics, lubricants, medicinal products, agricultural pesticides and fertilizers that have gone into the production of food….. (not all found within my room). Indeed, hydrocarbons are of infinitely more practical value as these other derivatives. While electric cars could be utilised immediately, nature has not provided anything like an alternative to these beautiful molecular chains.
It’s worth remembering, that before the internal combustion engine, petroleum from oil fields in Pennsylvania was just burnt off as a ‘waste product’ – how might our oil-poor decedents react to learn what we did to perfectly good molecules. “All those lovely hydrocarbons, and they just burnt them???” I don’t think I’m being too unrealistic to predict that there may come a time when peak oil approaches and we as nations have to be a little more conservative about how we use our reserves. This isn’t to say oil as a fuel will phase itself out – The world should definitely take steps to cut emissions drastically – I just want to end the fallacy that it is Shell and BP who are melting the ice caps.
Now I don’t drive. I have no reason the visit petrol stations. That is why when I do pass them on visits home (irregular), the prices advertised surprise me. The basic rate per barrel of crude has gone up, the price at the pumps has gone up. Oil companies are making record profits (Shell $7.8 billion, BP $6.6 billon, both 2008). So are they profiteering? Start up costs in the industry are very high, and interests are highly protected – as would be expected when there is so much to gain (even if at a risk – companies have to have global interests to minimise local catastrophes).
We live in a free market, if a company wishes to supply a product; it is free to set a price. This is true of every product from oil to golden syrup. If we keep buying, they’ll keep selling. Going back to the 50% of a room hypothesis, is it really so surprising that oil companies should have such large turnovers when, chances are, we as a planet buy far more of a product from someone like Exxon than from Tate and Lyle. And what if the government set limits on oil prices, or told the companies that their profits would be capped? I certainly hope we’d hear uproar from the right wing economists who claim to stand for ‘the free market’. Maybe the Daily Mail, known to print headlines such as ‘Oil companies make record profits!’ would accuse the government of the day of ‘Soviet style economy planning’. I would also hope to see a protest outside No 10 by Greenpeace: ‘Lower prices encourage Gas guzzlers’ or something like that.
Another thing I hear often enough is the geographic ignorance of anti-war people. “The only reason we are in Iraq is for the oil!”, “I bet the west would take a keener interest in Zimbabwe if there was oil there!”, etc, ad nauseam. The answer to the first, I don’t know and won’t attempt to answer one way or the other, (since I don’t have access to the same information as our former Prime Minister, I feel it would be unfair to criticise him). The second is a half truth, Zimbabwe has no natural oil or gas reserves, it does however have a substantial mineral wealth in iron, gold, nickel, chromium and others – all increasingly valuble metals. Before the decline under Mugabe, Rhodesia was ‘the breadbasket of Africa’- the continent’s Ukraine.
None of this has any bearing on the oil companies though. Politics isn’t always respectful of geology and the oil companies can hardly be blamed for going where the oil is. I’ll repeat that point for some of the thick eco-fascists; most oil companies prefer to drill in places where oil is to be found. It is unfortunate that a quarter of the worlds reserves (264 billion barrels) are found in Saudi Arabia, with another 136 billion and 115 billion in Iran and Iraq respectively, but what happened in the Palaeozoic 4-6km below the surface has little bearing on the fact that these areas are now a hotbed of theocracy and ignorance.
That European and American companies are taking huge risks in assisting these countries’ development (known to nationalise reserves at a moments notice) is something all to often ignored by the average Green. That states such as Saudi Arabia have lessened their dependence on the west and could be taking steps towards democracy and liberalisation is something also ignored.
Commentators are always trying to find ways to label our present era, be it the ‘Nuclear Age’ or the anthropocene. Another one thrown about is ‘the oil age’, owing to the fact that oil is to the modern world what copper was to the people of the Bronze Age. Without oil derived agro-chemicals we as a planet could never hope to feed 6billion+ people. But as I predicted, this won’t always be the case. Once oil stops being a fuel to be burned, our dependence will fall. In Turkey there is a popular saying ‘Iraq has oil, we have water. Let them drink their oil’. Local animosities aside this has a ring of truth in it; the global balance of power is shifting.
Whereas most people in the UK could name a major oil company or two, we’d be hard pressed to name the big players in the water industry. My knowledge stops at local providers. We as a society could live without oil, but not without water. In California, bottled water now costs more by the litre than gasoline. Petrol is (or should be) a commodity, water is a necessity. Quite why the green lobby see the oil companies as evil, evil, evil, while leaving the bottled water lot alone is beyond me.
To those who think the oil lobby is too powerful, consider this; In the 19th century, coal was king. A far more polluting fuel than either oil or gas (though very cheap), mine owners in northern England became very, very wealthy, flash forward to 1970 and it was a different. I know I’d probably be laughed out of the room for saying this, but I can see a time when oil wells have to be shut down as ‘unprofitable’, I could even see workers striking, if Saudi theocracy afforded such a privilege.
As a final point; the green lobby have for a very long time brainwashed us with images of the apparent evil of oil. One of their favourite stock images has to be the oil slick; they love ‘em. Such images are often to be seen on the front of a direct debit envelope sent by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, et al. Yes, crude is a killer for wildlife, especially birds, and I believe that oil companies should pay for the clean up (provided the z-list celebrities who jet in having reserved a seal can cover their own expenses). Unfortunately, supertankers are the only way of transporting the stuff, its that or thousands of kilometers of pipeline (the green lobby aren’t to fond of these either). As long as the sea is unpredictable, accidents will happen. If the captain is alleged to have been drinking (Exxon Valdez, 1989) this doesn’t help matters. In 1996, Milford Haven in Wales suffered a massive oil spill. Today the area is as clean as before. Pure crude is biodegradable.
Before I receive an angry letter from the RSPB, can I also say that birds have far more frequent hazards to watch out for than the odd slick 300 times as many birds are killed each year by flying into windows (90 million) than by oil slicks, but hey, maybe we should all live without windows – it’s clearly SiO2 that’s the killer, not good old C5H12. One wonders if, were it not for the emotive images, would we ever hear about these ‘catastrophic’ events? Wind turbines aren't exactly benevolent either.
To those with a competence in grammar and prose, I apologise for a badly structured rant. To those who would still attack me for the industry I love and the job I desire, I make no apologies.
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