The following is a letter I wrote that appeared in the Grand Forks Herald on August 15, 2008. The title it was given is, "Lower oil prices are no longer an option".

YURIHONJO, JAPAN — The August 12 Herald carried an editorial about a supposed tradeoff between lower gasoline prices and reduced dependence on foreign oil ("Energy policy has a question at its core," Page A4). In reality, there is no tradeoff. No matter what we do, gasoline prices will keep going up. The world is running out of oil, global demand for oil is increasing, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. The resources in Alaska, North Dakota and offshore seem large, but in fact the amount of oil in those places is just a fraction of global demand. And developing those resources takes a decade, so they certainly won't help us any time soon.

On the other hand, there are many good ways to deal with high oil prices. They all involve using less oil.

Douglas Perkins