Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 4.4
The Costs of Utilizing Petroleum
$
Environmental
costs
Dollar
costs
National security
costs
The costs of utilizing petroleum products are summarized in
Figure 4.4.
If Americans really un-
derstood the extent and severity of the environmental costs associated with development and use
of oil and natural gas, it seems unlikely they would willingly continue to rely on these resources
so heavily when there are other technologies and fuels available to meet our transportation and
heating needs. The environmental costs of petroleum utilization can only be described as “high”
because the devastation of petroleum development and utilization continues to be paid in the form
of destroyed marine ecosystems and global climate change. Many environmental costs of using
petroleum occur in remote areas or in submarine environments, out of sight of the consumer and
out of mind, or else in the form of invisible air contaminants that have few obvious impacts, but
severe long-term effects on the atmosphere.
Although consumer prices have been artificially suppressed by government subsidies and favor-
able tax treatment of oil companies, the dollar costs of petroleum use are substantial in terms of
transfers of wealth from the U.S. economy to other nation-states. The significance of such transfers
for national economies in draining scarce investment capital, increasing interest rates, contribut-
ing to higher prices for consumer goods, slowing economic growth, and increasing government
expenditures for social services has seldom been examined and is poorly understood. Certainly the
dollar costs of petroleum utilization are increasing and will be “moderately high” before adequate
substitutes are widely utilized in the transportation sector.
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