Sunday, July 13, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.
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There has been a great deal of discussion about opening the continental shelf off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for oil drilling.
One argument is that doing so would increase oil supplies and reduce the price of oil and oil products such as gasoline and diesel fuel. What no one has explained to me is why the oil companies would want to do this. What is their motivation to drill, discover and produce more oil if it would reduce the price of their product?
Instead, I suggest we accept the fact that the era of cheap petroleum is over. We should accept the challenge as well as the opportunity to move toward replacing carbon-based energy production with nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal energy production that does not result in climate change and is not dependent on foreign sources.
Our efforts should be aimed at the future and not at trying to turn back the clock to the days of cheap oil. This will not be done without some inconvenience or even pain, and if we think we can avoid this by doing more of what we used to do, we are mistaken.
Sometimes the real cure involves taking some medicine.
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