From htdailymail.com
Gasoline accounts for only 45% of the oil use in the USA. Swapping the SUV for a Prius sounds like a good idea, but of the 20 million barrels of oil used each day in the USA, only 9 million go to the production of fuel. See the chart. The rest is used in a variety of ways. Including asphalt. Which is rising in price. At the same time, state gas tax collections are down because people are driving less. On the other hand, less driving, less wear and tear on the roads. Well, except for electric cars who pay no road use tax...
Manufacturers like Procter & Gamble consume oil to make their products, the New York Times reported:
Price increases have helped to offset this cost. They have averaged nearly 5 percent for paper towels, bath tissues and diapers, all made with chemicals derived from oil, said Paul Fox, a company spokesman. Natural oils have been substituted for ingredients made from petroleum; for example, palm oil now goes into a variety of laundry soaps. But like rubber, the cost of palm oil and other natural commodities is rising.
And doesn't the production of palm oil harm the environment? Why, yes it does.
How did we get here? We put offshore drilling off limits. Then we expanded federal land holdings and put them off limits for oil drilling. Now the price of oil has shot up and we're demonizing the SUV because, well, it creates carbon dioxide which trees "breathe" but nonetheless is considered a bad thing by the political environmentalists. We seek alternative boutique fuels like palm oil because they make us feel good and we make ethanol not out of sugar like any sane person would but out of the least efficient plant available: corn.
The runoff from the fertilizers has created a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico the size and shape of New Jersey just off the Louisiana cost, which screws up the fishing industry. We are doing all this because of some half-witted environmentalists who think they know what they are doing and can bully the idiots we put in Congress into doing the "right thing" even if it is the stupid thing.
Yes, we should not pollute. I get that. But we should also not put our economic freedom in the hands of socialists who are hiding behind a green cover.
No, it is not simple. It never is. Unintended consequences abound - especially when you jump off into the deep end without knowing just exactly what the liquid is in the pool.