Talk Story
The future looks rosy
for gas guzzlersI ADMIT IT. I drive an SUV. It's not very big and it doesn't chug gasoline like a Lincoln Navigator or a Cadillac Escalade. In fact, my little two-wheel-drive Honda CRV gets gas mileage almost as good as my wife's Impreza's.
But they say my choice of vehicle is part of the problem. Since 1991, U.S. consumption of petroleum has increased 17.6 percent to almost 20 million barrels a day and experts blame gas-hungry sport-utility vehicles, bigger houses and busier airports for much of the increase.
In Hawaii, we burn only slightly more oil per capita than average Americans. While we rank 42nd among the states in population, we rank 41st in petroleum consumption, according to the Energy Information Administration's official statistics for 50 states and the District of Columbia. What's interesting is how it breaks down.
Thanks to our short island commutes and efficient public transportation, we are only 46th in gasoline consumption, pumping about a million gallons a day into our cars at 375 gas stations.
However, in jet fuel consumption we rank 18 out of 51. We burn a whopping 1.1 million gallons a day and our ranking reflects how dependent on oil our tourism economy is. If the planes don't fly cheaply enough, we're out of business.
AMERICANS MAKE UP only 4.5 percent of the world's total population - 281 million out of 6.2 billion people. Yet, of the 75 million barrels of oil that will be burned in the world today, U.S. consumption will be 27 percent.
Only 6 of the 20 million barrels of oil Americans will use today will be domestic. At the current price of $24 a barrel, Americans will spend $125 billion a year importing the rest. We spend $480 million a day on petroleum -- about $1.71 per person. The tab comes to $175 billion a year.
The good news, given the turmoil in the Middle East, is that the oil game is changing. Last year, for example, we bought only 23.5 percent of our oil supply from Persian Gulf suppliers, down from a peak of 27.8 percent in 1977.
Russia is emerging as the world market's leading petroleum producer. In the old days, the U.S.S.R. used oil as an instrument of international politics, selling it to other governments in deals that didn't affect world prices. Now, Russia has become a player, increasing output by a half-million barrels a day during the last year.
We finally have OPEC over a barrel, if you'll pardon the expression. The cartel of oil producers restricts output to keep world prices up, but higher prices make finding new sources of oil more profitable and new oil supplies, like those coming out of Russia, reduce OPEC's market share and our own dependence on the Middle East.
Mexico has replaced Saudi Arabia as the No. 1 source for U.S. oil imports, followed by Canada and Venezuela. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, more than 48 percent of our imports now come from the Western Hemisphere.
At OPEC-manipulated prices, other non-OPEC countries are finding oil production is profitable. Already, according to the Journal, England is pumping more oil than Abu Dhabi and Angola is expected to out-produce Kuwait in the future.
THE MIDEAST'S advantage is that its high-grade crude oil is easy to get to, while other countries have faced technical obstacles. Accordingly, oil companies have put new technologies to work in Canada to separate oil from rocky tar deposits mined in northern Alberta.
Brazil, using new off-shore rigs that can drill in depths of 8,500 feet, is tapping oil reserves beneath the ocean floor that might amount to as much as 1.3 billion barrels.
Venezuela, an OPEC member, has deposits that rival Saudi Arabia's, but much of it is in the form of nearly solid tar, useful only as low-grade boiler fuel until now. New refining techniques can convert this gunk into mid-grade crude that can be further refined into gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel. The Venezuelans are moving 200,000 barrels of it a day.
In Africa and rapidly developing Asia, new gas-to-liquid technologies that convert natural gas to clean-burning, easy-to-transport, liquid fuels appear to have a bright future.
The upshot is that I'm keeping my SUV. In fact, when it comes time to retire the Impreza, we might buy a second sport-ute -- as long as it gets more than 25 miles per gallon.
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.