No One Asked Me But… (July 13, 2022)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… More than 5 million barrels of the oil from The Strategic Petroleum Reserve have been released and exported to Europe and Asia. The American people were told this was a move to lower domestic fuel prices though one must wonder how sending oil out of the country would lower domestic prices.

Admittedly five million barrels of oil is only about five percent of the oil used in America in a single day. In 2021, the United States consumed an average of about twenty-million barrels of petroleum per day, or a total of about seven billion barrels of petroleum per year.

This rather under-reported fact sent me on a search for what the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is and why it was established. I began with the thought that somewhere in my past life someone explained that this was fuel stockpile for a military emergency in case we were to lose our ability to depend on the Middle-East to supply fuel for our war machine.

During my research I found that truly there was a military facet to the building of the reserve, but it was not the sole reason for the creation of an oil reserve. A crisis in the Middle-East in the 1970’s caused a spike in gas prices and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was established to help stem future high gas prices as well as ensure the American military would have the fuel it needed in case of war.

My research leads me to believe the primary purpose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil, is to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products from around the world.

The SPR is stored in huge underground salt caverns at four sites along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. The sheer size of the SPR (authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels) can make a significant deterrent to oil import cutoffs.

About 1 million barrels per day will be released from the SPR through October. That is about five percent of the petroleum used each day by Americans.
The flow is draining the SPR, which last month fell to its lowest since 1986.

It is time for American “greenies” to “bite the bullet” and give up the fantasy of a world without fossil fuel. It is time for America to become fuel independent. America needs to dip into its three-hundred-year supply of crude oil that is in the ground in America. Not for the purpose of exporting it but to use it domestically, while working on alternatives that work, not some pie in the sky by and by solution.

The day that some brilliant engineer comes up with a plan to make a car that will run efficiently on something other than fossil fuel, I will be the first to buy in.

No one asked me but… Maybe you have notice we are in a drought. I was hoping that it would rain soon. Not so much for me and my overly large lawn, but for my grandchildren so they would know what I am talking about when I mention rain.

While it was mentioned in church last week that the Moapa Valley community was joining together to pray for rain, my thoughts went to the idea that someone had better find Elijah.

There is an outcry in southern California about the lack of hydro power being generated at the Hoover Dam facility. Those who have decided that all fossil fuel generation of electricity will not be allowed in the state of California after 2030 are beginning to panic. They are already experiencing rolling brownouts because green energy is not capable of keeping up with the demand. One must wonder what they believe will happen when only electric cars are allowed to roam the streets of California.

My neighbors are on the road and I am watering their plants and feeding their goats. As I watered I thought of Marty Robbins song Cool Water. I have always been a Marty Robbins fan. I don’t believe there has been a great singer since Marty died. If this drought keeps up we may all be singing Marty’s song.

All day I’ve faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water,
Cool water

Old Dan and I with throats
burned dry
And souls that cry for water–
Cool, clear water.

The nights are cool and I’m a fool
Each star’s a pool of water –
Cool water

And with the dawn I’ll wake and
yawn
And carry on to water–
Cool, clear water

Keep a-movin’, Dan;
Don’t you listen to him, Dan;
He’s a devil, not a man,
And he spreads the burnin’ sand With water

Dan, can you see that big, green
tree?
Where the water’s runnin’ free
And it’s waitin’ there for you and
me?
Water, cool, clear water!

The shadows sway and seem to
say
“Tonight we pray for water–
Cool water”

And way up there He’ll hear our
prayer
And show us where there’s water–
Cool, clear water

Keep a-movin’, Dan,
Don’t you listen to him, Dan
He’s a devil, not a man
And he spreads the burnin’ sand With water

Dan, can you see that big, green
tree?
Where the water’s runnin’ free
And it’s waitin’ there for you and
me?
Water, cool, clear water

I would certainly appreciate some cool, clear water from the sky.

Thought of the week… “It’s so dry the trees are bribing the dogs.”
― Charles Martin