Why You Should Stop Worrying About Oil Shortages

We're well-stocked for any realistic calamities

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 21, 2008 1:18 PM CDT

(Newser) – Energy security has become a matter of major public hand-wringing, but everyone ought to calm down, write Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press in the New York Times. Our oil supplies are perfectly safe—the US, its businesses, and its allies have more than enough oil to weather any short-term disruption in supplies. No matter the trouble in Iran, Venezuela or Nigeria, America will be fine.

The source of this security is the strategic petroleum reserve, the government’s 700-million-barrel rainy-day supply, and similar stockpiles around the world. Some fret that the amount is minuscule considering the 20 million barrels Americans consume each day, but it is more than sufficient to cover, say, the 2.5 million barrels Iran exports. If Iran tried to cut off exports, it would lose 80% of national revenue—and the US would be OK.

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In this Sept. 2, 2005 file photo, oil company's reserve tanks stand along the Tokyo Bay in Kawasaki, south of Tokyo. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye, File)

Rito Anaya, who works at a landscaping business, pumps gas into gas tanks at Gas Depot gas station in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

An oil worker operates a fuel tank during the opening of a privately owned bio-diesel factory, run by Peru's Heaven Petroleum Operators, in Lima, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008. (AP Photo/Karel Navarro)

Oil storage tanks in Linden, N.J. are shown in this aerial photo of Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Pipes carrying liquid natural gas, or LNG, and electrical lines run toward a storage tank at the Distrigas liquid natural gas plant in an Everett, Mass. file photo from March 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

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Public inventories are a blunt instrument designed to protect the oil market as a whole from major disruptions. - Eugene Gholz, associate professor of government

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Why You Should Stop Worrying About Oil Shortages