OPEC announced Friday it will reduce oil production by 1.5 million barrels a day because of the global slowdown of oil demand. This could drive gas prices back up, but that might not be such a bad thing.

The New York Times reported that the emergency meeting ended with the decision to reduce OPEC output by 5 percent, which is 2 percent of the overall global consumption of oil, starting Nov.1.

Oil prices are trading below $64 a barrel, down from $145 a barrel in July.

The U.S. is the world’s largest oil consumer, but demand in the U.S. for oil is down and the lowest in five years. Last month it fell to 18.6 million barrels a day according to the Department of Energy.

As of Monday, gas now averages $2.66 a gallon, down from $4.11 on July 17. OPEC seems desperate to keep gas prices up.

Although this might seem bad for the economy to raise gas prices, it might be the best thing for the environment and green energy movement. When gas prices were high Americans started limiting their gasoline consumption and went to more earth-friendly forms of transportation such as biking, carpooling, taking the bus, walking, or even planning their trips more efficiently. Hopefully the fall of gas prices won’t revert those who now think more about their gasoline consumption.   

Democrats recently caved to the Republican Party’s demands for drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) — their seemingly favorite solution to high gas prices after they reached $4 earlier this summer. As a result, the offshore drilling moratorium expired at midnight on Sept. 30, even though it had been renewed every year since 1982. The moratorium banned drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, but now some see drilling as the only answer to our energy problems.

This marks the first of many battles-to-come between the two political parties involving offshore drilling. And it’s not looking pretty.

The Interior Department claims there are 18 billion barrels of oil to be retrieved from the Outer Continental Shelf, mainly around California. The House already passed legislation last month to allow oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as long as it was at least 50 miles from the shore. But the Republicans wanted to drill closer, claiming that almost 90 percent of oil reserves would than be off-limits.

According to the Energy Information Administration, any coastal drilling — whether or not it’s 50 miles away — would take time and money, neither of which the government has. The oil rigs, alone, would take at least five years to set up, and it would take at least another 15 until any drilling would show significant changes in gas prices. Many states may not even allow coastal drilling because of the chances that it could destroy public beaches. All of these reasons give Democrats the opportunity to create a broader legislation that could stop oil companies from drilling before any rigs are ever even built.

Of course, a large part of what will happen depends on who our next president will be. John McCain’s energy plan depends heavily on offshore drilling, while Barack Obama’s plan sees it as a small part to a bigger solution. To make your own opinion about the two, read The Candidates Discuss Energy Issues or watch the presidential debates on Oct. 7 and Oct. 15, airing at 9 p.m. Eastern time on all major broadcast networks. Or post a comment below if you already have an opinion.

Drilling for oil in Alaska is among one of the key issues of the political campaigns this year. Each party presents its own justifications for its proposals for ending this spiral of choking gas prices and dependency on foreign oil, but what are they not telling you?

Politicians, economists and that guy sitting in the cubicle across from yours who knows everything about everything, can talk until they’re blue in their faces, but when there’s a division on the economy and the environment, the only answers good enough for both sides are going to come from the numbers. So here they are. Use them for what you will, but that guy, he’ll be hearing from me.

Current Petroleum Consumption

*The U.S. consumes nearly 21 million barrels of petroleum every day – that’s 7.5 billion barrels a year.

*Sixty-six percent of that petroleum is imported.

*At the current pace, the U.S. will spend more than $500 billion on petroleum imports by the end of the year.

Drilling Won’t Solve Our Problems

*A 1998 U.S. Geological Survey estimated recoverable oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) would be about 10.4 billion barrels – the equivalent of one and a half years’ current consumption. A more recent study, released by the Department of Energy put recoverable oil between 1.9 billion and 4.3 billion barrels. The report addresses reasons for the discrepancy.

*Fifty-nine billion barrels would be recoverable from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), of which only 18 percent are off limits as per a federal moratorium. According to U.S. Department of Energy studies, lifting this ban would yield 1 percent our current consumption by the year 2030.

*DOE predicts ANWR oil reserves to reduce oil prices by 2 cents per gallon. Combined, lifting the moratoria on the OCS and ANWR would reduce the price by 6 cents, which wouldn’t be seen for another 10 years.

Alternatives Are Possible

*The new fuel-economy standard of 35 miles per gallon, as set by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, is projected to save more than 1.1 million barrels of oil per day in 2020. And people are learning how to make more fuel-efficient cars all the time.

*In time, oil imports could be reduced significantly with an electric public-transportation system and with restructuring urban transport.

*With the increasing production and modification of plug-in cars, vehicles could eventually be powered, at least partly so, from energy obtained through wind turbines. Here’s an article about this very concept.

This week the U.S. presidential candidates have had a lot to say about energy. Barack Obama released his official energy plan on Monday. John McCain released many of the details of his position on energy back in June.

Both candidates are voicing strong support for improving energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, developing more renewable energy and moving toward energy independence. But the energy issues they’re focusing on and the details of their plans are very different. For instance, McCain is putting much more emphasis on developing nuclear energy, while Obama has set much higher goals for developing electricity from renewable sources.

If you’d like to read more about their plans, CNN has a good summary of the two candidates' positions on energy here.

You can also read the details of the plans on the candidates’ Web sites. You can find more about McCain’s energy plan at www.johnmccain.com, and Obama’s at www.barackobama.com.

Although we’ve all had our share of complaints about the gas prices in our country, this growing situation does seem to be getting out of hand. Only a few days ago, I filled up and the price was almost $60! I remember when I was in high school (I graduated in 2003); I could fill up the same car for around $20.

So it’s no surprise the question of offshore drilling in America has been introduced by the 2008 presidential candidates. While John McCain promotes it as something that will “rescue our family budgets,” Obama opposes it. One of his main reasons for opposing offshore drilling is because it will be at least a decade before we can produce usable oil. He also beleives offshore drilling is the wrong emphasis. The focus, in his eyes, should be on renewable energy. 

Even the Energy Information Administration (the energy analysis agency of the U.S. Department of Energy) says that 20 years from now, offshore drilling would produce less that 0.2 percent of world production.

While reading about this issue, I came upon a very interesting opinion piece from Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director and Co-founder of the Center for Economic Policy Research. To read it click here.

What do you think? Is offshore drilling a good idea? Let us know in the comments section below.

As Congress is scrambling for a quick solution to America’s oily crisis, the Alaska Wilderness League is working to expose misconceptions about the benefits and environmental effects of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain region. Here are a handful of points the group released last month.

• Leasing and development of the region would result in production of approximately 2.6 billion barrels of oil between 2018 and 2030, with production peaking in 2027 at approximately 780,000 barrels per day.
  
• Production would not lower gas prices immediately. Even if Congress authorized leasing tomorrow, first production would not occur for 10 years.
  
• At peak, the gas pump reduction would be less than $0.04 per gallon, based on a $0.78 per barrel reduction in the price of crude oil (in 2008 dollars).
  
• In recent years, reductions in petroleum consumption have led to reductions in projected future imports that dwarf the production potential of the Arctic Refuge.
  
• When national trends are extended out to the year 2050, the U.S. is on track to achieve a reduction in imports of more than 100 billion barrels of oil through conservation and alternative technologies.
  
• By 2050, potential production from the region is estimated to be less than 10 billion barrels of oil.
  
• The oil industry on Alaska's North Slope annually emits more than twice the amount of nitrous oxide emitted by Washington, D.C.
  
• The oil field industrial sprawl on the North Slope spreads across an area of more than 1,000 square miles.
  
• The Prudhoe Bay oil fields and Trans-Alaska Pipeline have caused an average of 504 spills annually on the North Slope since 1996.

For the full reports, see The Myth of Environmentally Sensitive Oil Exploration in Alaska and Existing Conservation and Alternative Technology Gains Far Outweigh Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Potential: Oil Imports Have Declined Significantly Since 2005.

Also, see Analysis of Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by the Energy Information Administration.