OUR VIEW: Iran's embargo threat offers a local lesson
By The Bakersfield Californian
The good-cop, bad-cop routine Iran has adopted in its dealings with world condemnation of its nuclear program validates what Kern County power producers have long been convinced of: Global instability requires that America continue to work toward energy independence.
Be it oil production in this petroleum capital of California or alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen, Kern County is and must remain a leader.
Iran's contradictory rhetoric only adds to the uncertainty surrounding future world oil supplies. Out of one side of its mouth, Iran threatens an oil embargo directed at six European buyers -- Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Greece and Portugal -- in retaliation for the European Union's decision last month to impose an oil embargo starting July 1 as part of coordinated Western sanctions targeting Iran's alleged uranium enrichment program. But in between such declarations, the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sprinkles in vague indications of openness to inspections and negotiations.
What to do, then?
Keep producing, as quickly and as responsibly as possible. Crude oil prices are higher than they've ever been, in inflation-adjusted terms, not counting brief spikes in 1979 and 2008, and the U.S. is still an overall net importer of 9 million barrels of crude oil and refined products a day. Much of that oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a potential bottleneck that Iran has threatened to shut down.
It'll take more than ramped-up Kern County energy production to put a dent in the oil-trade deficit, but we've got to try. Alternative sources are particularly promising in Kern County, and the county Board of Supervisors is correct to look benevolently on projects that tap them responsibly.
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