The Tyranny of Oil

My friend Jeffrey Theodore noted last night that when talking about energy in his victory speech last night, Barack Obama spoke of ending the tyranny of oil rather than the more conventional "tyranny of foreign oil." I thought maybe that was just an ad-lib or a slip, but it's a line he's used before.

It's a small thing, but it's a much better way of framing the issue than the conventional xenophobic line that's less economically and environmentally accurate.

Photo by Flickr user Skampy used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

What a cool photograph--can you tell us more about it? Where is that sculpture? Is it still up?

Posted by Beth | January 4, 2008 5:44 PM

I suppose that's fine and dandy, but aren't the two really one and the same from an American perspective? Don't we run about 60% on imports? So wouldn't ending imported oil come about the same way as oil in general? Unless there is a massive oil well sitting underneath midtown Manhattan I don't know about...

Posted by freddiemac | January 4, 2008 5:47 PM

Maybe we can have a "rebellion against oil" to go with the "war on terror." Although I suspect that those who profess to be baffled by the first metaphor will have no problem with the second, and vice versa.

Posted by y81 | January 4, 2008 5:55 PM

The sculpture was featured at a recent Burning Man.

Posted by dob | January 4, 2008 6:01 PM

I like Obama's phrasing because ending the tyranny of FOREIGN oil means drilling on every square inch of American land that hasn't already been pumped dry. Or at least that's what it means to Republicans.

Posted by brewmn | January 4, 2008 6:07 PM

So wouldn't ending imported oil come about the same way as oil in general? Unless there is a massive oil well sitting underneath midtown Manhattan I don't know about...

Alaska.

Posted by Royko | January 4, 2008 6:10 PM

Whether Obama's phrasing was intentional or not, it's quite apt. The whole "foreign oil" thing is idiotic, given that oil is a fungible commodity in a global system of trade. It's not like we could ever have enough domestic oil to supply our needs, and it's not like we would be able to separate it from "foreign oil" anyway. Ending the "tyranny" of oil is good as well because it doesn't mean ending the use of oil, just its stranglehold over geopolitics and the environment.

Posted by John E. | January 4, 2008 6:12 PM

Is it still up?

No.

Posted by Wrongshore | January 4, 2008 6:23 PM

Well, until Obama is elected, the tyranny of Oil continues: Get back into your cells.

Posted by gerontion | January 4, 2008 6:41 PM

Every dollar spent on foreign oil or gas or not on substitutes leaves America and enriches a Chavez or Saudi prince or a Nigerian middleman pals with the kleptocrats.

It makes sense to become as self-sufficient as possible, not use it as a argument why, since we can not be entirely self-sufficient, we must cease all domestic oil and gas exploration and become wholly foreign-dependent. To fail to do so kills our economy, many jobs, and the value of the dollar.

Given the people and demand, there are other resources America cannot become self-sufficient in. Gold production, copper mine production, citrus fruit, seafood, bauxite, dates and apricots, even. But domestic production is quite substantial and despite some tradeoffs, people understand it would be crazy for us to shut down all our gold mines, the date, apricot,citrus farms, cease developing fisheries, end bauxite mining.

Yet it makes great sense somehow to the idiots to ban further oil, gas exploration and coal and nuclear energy production - and lose huge numbers of jobs and bleed our wealth away to Arabs..

Posted by Chris Ford | January 4, 2008 6:43 PM

CNN has a clip of him saying "foreign oil" at a campaign event today. So this is probably overanalysis . . . or else he's not above a little bit of conventional xenophobia, I guess.

Posted by southpaw | January 4, 2008 7:06 PM

For more on the photo, search YouTube for Crude Awakening and Burning Man 2007. It went up in a spectacular fireball hours after the Man burned (for the second time).

Posted by Alex | January 4, 2008 7:25 PM

We now import about 75% of the total oil we consume, 20.5-21 million barrels per day (mbpd).

US production has been declining since 1970, and is now about 5.1 mbpd.

At $90 a barrel, and importing 13.5 mbpd, the US pays $1.2 billion each day for its oil imports. This comes to $440 billion per year. This constitutes about half of its trade deficit. Unless the US stops importing oil, it'll have a hard time eliminating the trade imbalance.

July 2007 US oil production and consumption stats from US government agency EIA:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

Where we import our oil from:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbblpd_a.htm

At 21 mbpd, the US consumes 882 gallons of oil each day. This is roughly 3 gallons per day per capita.

Posted by blah2 | January 4, 2008 8:22 PM

I'm glad at least three people got the burning man bit before ten comments.

Posted by bago | January 4, 2008 9:53 PM

The word "Tyranny" has very deep meaning for those Straussians among us .....Its an Awesome Choice of words - and when taken into consideration of much of the other stuf i've read about him, seems to indicate EXACTLY how to use the 'dogwhistle' Good on him ! its about time a Democrat learned how !!!!

www.logosjournal.com/xenos

Posted by matthew | January 4, 2008 10:40 PM

The word "Tyranny" has very deep meaning for those Straussians among us .....Its an Awesome Choice of words - and when taken into consideration of much of the other stuf i've read about him, seems to indicate EXACTLY how to use the 'dogwhistle' Good on him ! its about time a Democrat learned how !!!!

www.logosjournal.com/xenos

Posted by matthew | January 4, 2008 10:41 PM

We need to move off oil, foreign or domestic, but saying "foreign oil" is defensible. Our dependence on foreign oil has caused us to make alliances with undemocratic governments in the Middle East because they have oil, and our support for those governments is a major contributor to resentment against us that leads to terrorism. Moving off oil would let us conduct a foreign policy that's more in line with our values and reduce the motivation for terrorism against us.

Posted by croatoan | January 5, 2008 1:02 AM

Now if BMW would only start selling that hydrogen car they advertised a bit a while back (it told you to go to their site, which said "still in production and experimentation" or something like that).

Posted by Reality Man | January 5, 2008 1:23 AM

"US production has been declining since 1970, and is now about 5.1 mbpd."

It's tough to increase production when politicians (primarily Democrats) keep so many of our promising fields (e.g., in ANWR, offshore, etc.) off limits to exploration and drilling.

"Every dollar spent on foreign oil or gas or not on substitutes leaves America and enriches a Chavez or Saudi prince or a Nigerian middleman pals with the kleptocrats."

Well, not every dollar. A lot of our money spent on foreign oil goes to enrich Canadians, and, to a lesser extent, Mexicans. A little bit even goes to fill the coffers of Norway's sovereign wealth fund.

Posted by Fred | January 5, 2008 1:56 AM

"It's tough to increase production when politicians (primarily Democrats) keep so many of our promising fields (e.g., in ANWR, offshore, etc.) off limits to exploration and drilling."

C'mon, we've all seen the numbers and there really isn't anything there that would make drilling worthwhile on national security grounds. The only reasons to drill there would be for oil companies to make more money. If we're going to open them up, we should probably wait until we have more efficient engines and such. After all, ANWR has under a year's oil at current consumption rates (IIRC, the Bushies fired the guy they hired to figure out how much oil ANWR had because he replied with "less than a year").

Posted by Reality Man | January 5, 2008 2:38 AM

"The only reasons to drill there would be for oil companies to make more money."

I can think of a few more reasons to drill in ANWR and promising offshore sites:

Reduced need for oil imports.

Increased supply of oil, which would put downward pressure on oil prices and relieve a de facto tax on the economy.

Tens of thousands of new high-paying blue color jobs.

Increased royalty and tax revenue for the federal and state governments.

Increased economic growth.

Higher dividends and capital gains for pension funds, senior citizens, and other shareholders of oil complex companies.


The choice isn't between drilling more of our own oil and using less oil: we are going to be using oil either way, for the foreseeable future. I'm all for alternative energy, but in the meantime that it takes for promising alternatives to become viable, it would be better for us to use more of our own oil -- particularly at these prices.

Posted by Fred | January 5, 2008 3:18 AM

Fred, the offshore sites that the oil companies keep pimping don't really have much there, especially not enough to justify drilling on national security grounds. We're not going to become independent of foreign oil through offshore drilling. These things would barely make a dent in reducing our oil imports.

Posted by Reality Man | January 5, 2008 6:04 AM

Damn the tyranny of oil. They make my car go everywhere.

Posted by Mr. Forward | January 5, 2008 9:08 AM

If you read (and believe) James Kunslter, all this talk about oil is just silly anyway. Since we've reached peak oil, the following few decades are pretty predictable. Oil will continue to get more expensive as exploration and production gets harder and more costly. Certain, obvious, ways of life will cease to exist, slowly at first and then more quickly: Suburban living. The car culture. The 12,000 mile Wal-Mart supply chain. Mass industrial farming (causing severe inconvenience here in the States and utter devastation in Africa and other places that depend on our overproduction).

Kunslter's biggest insight, in my opinion, is this: rather than thinking of technological advances as stand alone achievements, begin to think of technology, over the last 100 years, as, essentially, new ways to harness the power of oil. For example, a tractor isn't just a machine that does the work of dozens of men in one afternoon, it's a machine that takes the incredible amount of energy stored in oil and does the work of dozens of men in one afternoon. A airplane isn't a magical flying machine, it's a tool that we use to harness the power of oil to fly, etc.

Now, apply that logic to everything in the world that it applies to, and then imagine what happens when oil begins to dry up.

I suppose it's a good thing that Obama is mentioning "the tyranny of oil", but really the alternative to oil is inconceivable for the masses to contemplate. And, frankly, if they could contemplate it, they would probably just as soon we continue invading the ever living shit out of people and just take their oil and prolong the fantasy as long as possible.

Posted by Russ | January 5, 2008 9:54 AM

Reality Man,

I listed six reasons why we should allow recovery from domestic oil sources that are currently off limits for political reasons. You haven't refuted any of them. As for your dismissal of the potential of American offshore deposits, I wouldn't be so dismissive, particularly after this huge recent discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, which may be large enough to increase U.S. reserves by 50% by itself.

"If you read (and believe) James Kunslter, all this talk about oil is just silly anyway. Since we've reached peak oil, the following few decades are pretty predictable."

Russ,

Unfortunately this FT Lex Column is available only to subscribers, but it contained an instructive graphic showing global proved oil reserves divided by annual consumption (i.e., how long the current supplies of oil will last given current consumption rates). In 1980, global oil consumption was about 62 million barrels per day, and calculation then was that the world had about 29 years of consumption left at those rates. In 2006, global oil consumption was about 84 million barrels per day, and the calculation was that we had about 40 years of consumption left at those rates.

Posted by Fred | January 5, 2008 10:22 AM

What utter rubbish! The "Tyranny of Oil" exists because it is the lowest cost fuel available. So just how does Obama propose to magically discover a lower cost alternative fuel?

Markets are good at finding the lowest cost solution, whereas politicans are good at finding the most popular solution to their constituent base.

Posted by Abdul Abulbul Amir | January 5, 2008 11:33 AM

Re: Oil will continue to get more expensive as exploration and production gets harder and more costly. Certain, obvious, ways of life will cease to exist, slowly at first and then more quickly

Assuming that nothing replaces oil-- which is a very unlikely assumption given the history of human technologies.

Posted by JonF | January 5, 2008 4:59 PM

The sculpture was made by the Crude Crew of Karen Cusolito and Dan Das Mann
http://www.headlesspoint.com/

It is giant metal figures with propane and other flame effects during the week - plus this happened at the end!!!:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mills42/1559045929/in/set-72157602399223103/

Posted by Caroline Miller | January 5, 2008 9:08 PM

Fred, I certainly agree that the profit motive has been amazingly resourceful at finding new and better ways to extract oil. But you have to admit that oil is a finite product and will eventually cease to be available. We've been amazing at delaying the judgment day and will probably continue to delay it, but eventually we are just arguing about the time and place, not the "if" of the matter. We are already seeing the strains on the system, aren't we? $100 a barrel of oil, for instance.

And I wish I could share JonF's optimism that we will find an alternative, however there is simply nothing around that can match the quality of oil and all it's byproducts. It is simply a fact that our entire way of life is centered in some way around oil, and when the supply of oil gets disrupted, our way of life will as well.

Think of it this way, there are 6.6 billion people in the world today and just 1.7b (or so) in 1908. This is also the same year that oil production began in the Middle East and the year the Model T was invented. How much of that population growth was made possible by oil powered farm machinery and the ability to transport that grain to the four corners of the Earth? Now imagine what happens when the farm machinery and supply lines are stalled due to lack of oil. I think there are dark times ahead, but I'm a pessimist.

Posted by Russ | January 6, 2008 6:25 AM

I'm glad that Russ made the point about population growth and trying to always count on technological discoveries to solve major problems in society. Then book "Small is Beautiful" discussed this decades ago. The fact is that we need population control,conservation,alternative energy,economic change and political change all at the same time. The odds that we will make meaningful steps in any of these areas is doubtful when you look at the state of the leadership, potential leaders and level of education in this country and around the world. We were aware of the conservation needs decades ago and we pissed away decades. When Clinton talked about raising CAFE standards the Society of Automotive Engineers noted that the technology already existed to acheive a 20% increase in fuel economy. It was fought tooth and nail by corporate interests both from Detroit who didn't want to do anything costing them any money and the oil companies who do not want conservation to cut consumption. The cost according to the SAE was less than $200 per vehicle. If we could not get that how do we peacefully get the other things I listed? There will however be change because resources are not limitless. I don't believe these changes will at all be peaceful but will be quite violent on both the foreign and domestic fronts.

Posted by chuck | January 6, 2008 7:59 PM

I'm glad that Russ made the point about population growth and trying to always count on technological discoveries to solve major problems in society. Then book "Small is Beautiful" discussed this decades ago. The fact is that we need population control,conservation,alternative energy,economic change and political change all at the same time. The odds that we will make meaningful steps in any of these areas is doubtful when you look at the state of the leadership, potential leaders and level of education in this country and around the world. We were aware of the conservation needs decades ago and we pissed away decades. When Clinton talked about raising CAFE standards the Society of Automotive Engineers noted that the technology already existed to acheive a 20% increase in fuel economy. It was fought tooth and nail by corporate interests both from Detroit who didn't want to do anything costing them any money and the oil companies who do not want conservation to cut consumption. The cost according to the SAE was less than $200 per vehicle. If we could not get that how do we peacefully get the other things I listed? There will however be change because resources are not limitless. I don't believe these changes will at all be peaceful but will be quite violent on both the foreign and domestic fronts.

Posted by chuck | January 6, 2008 8:01 PM

Does America realize that the majority of its "foreign oil" actually comes all the way from .... Canada - hardly a tyrannical state.

BO also mentioned empowering American farmers especially those with the ingenuity to make change - is he alluding to bio-fuels, etc??

Posted by Bobo | January 16, 2008 10:58 AM