Falling prices of oil in US may lead more carbon emission. Image Courtesy – https://www.newscientist.com
Dropping of oil prices may be like good news for drivers in US, but it could be awful news for our climate. Crude oil prices have floated around $100 per barrel in recent times. But it is noticeable that the prices of crude oil have been dropping relentlessly throughout the previous 2 months and it may continue for coming months also.
The global benchmark “Bent crude” was trading below $85 per barrel. With this aftermath, gas price has become cheaper at the pumps. Average gas prices in the US moved smoothly from $3.49 to $3.21 per gallon from 15th September to 20th October.
“Lower oil costs could represent a question for the move to post-carbon maintainability,” says Anthony Perl, Director of Urban Studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who is a researcher on the ‘intersection of transportation, cities, and the environment’. He also told that he would like to make an alert, because motivators for preservation and alternative energy would be diminished in the short term.
Read: A rare planet outside of Earth’s Solar System
Oil supply is rising on account of the American fracking blast and the arrival of steadiness to developing countries like Libya, while fall of demand due to ‘economic slowdowns’ in few nations like China. Americans get energized when they hear gas costs are going down. Furthermore, this is an absolute chance of saving for Americans. As it was calculated, 1 penny decrease in the retail cost of fuel for a year adds up to $1.2 billion in savings for American consumers.
In any case, lower costs for oil could have two negative impacts – more smouldering of gas and less interest in cleaner options and technologies related to that subject. Low oil costs diminish the money related motivators to utilize less oil or reversing back from it. It could affect the pace of developing ‘fuel-efficient’ cars and also affect the reduce rate of driving.
The most recent decade has seen higher gas costs, on account of rising demands from developing countries and declining stores of effectively available oil. Throughout the previous 9 years, generally high gas costs, consolidated with social life style in urban communities, biking, strolling, working from home, taking mass travel, have created America’s vehicle miles travelled decreased in the total.
Read: Origination Of Numbers
American automakers do not enhance proficiency unless they are compelled to. Drivers in the US have prized different components, similar to size and speed, over efficiency, and the car industry has childishly encouraged their greedy hungers.
Obama organization has ordered higher mileage norms. That mandate, consolidated with high costs of fuel made individuals purchase more ‘fuel efficient’ cars. That was the reason the fuel effectiveness of new cars sold in the US broke a record for the 2013 model year. The ‘United States Environmental Protection Agency’ predicted that progress of purchasing ‘fuel efficient’ cars would slow down as Americans started buying more trucks and SUVs due to lower gas prices.
If the cost of oil went sufficiently low to decrease shale oil extraction, that would create more ecological drawbacks than upsides. The low costs would inspire more oil use, which would prompt more prominent CO2 discharge. Alan J. Krupnick, Senior Fellow and Co-Director, RFF Centre for Energy and Climate Economics, says, “We ought to pull rather at higher oil costs. That is the best approach to change the conduct of drivers and oil-expending organizations, and to help business interest in cleaner fuel sources and also technology required for that process”. He also told that they needed high price in fuel to get attention of the entrepreneurs and to focus ‘zero-fossil-fuel’ usage.
Reference: Grist
