I’d like to respond to the letter by Gerald Quindry in last week’s Independent. His general idea is we need to drill oil here specifically because we need oil for chemical feedstocks, fertilizer, lubrication, roads, etc. I find this idea self contradictory and extremely illogical because most of the oil produced these days is burned for fuel.
The oil here is poor quality and expensive to produce so It would make more sense to leave it in the ground and keep it from being burned. Meanwhile we should make every effort to stop burning any oil and save it for other uses in the future. That way our grandchildren will have some oil for these important nonburning uses.
It makes more sense to use the easy-to-produce oil in other places as a bridge fuel as we cut back on the burning. Once we develop more renewable energy sources there will be a glut of oil and plenty for the future.
