Big Oil launches counteroffensive

With all the attention being paid to alternative fuels, it is not surprising that Big Oil should launch a PR counteroffensive. The American Petroleum Institute (API), advertising itself as "the People of America's Oil and Natural Gas Industry," is running a new TV ad, Delivering America's Energy Security, which can be viewed at their website at energytomorrow.com. Their contention is that there is still so much oil under America that we can achieve energy independence without getting off oil for a long time. According to API, there are "112 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil beneath U.S. federal lands and coastal waters. That's enough oil to fuel 60 million cars for 60 years." Unfortunately, we already seem to have about 250,000,000 passenger vehicles in the U.S. And perhaps we don't have 60 years to reverse the effects of 100 years of gasoline-powered internal combustion.
[Source: American Petroleum Institute]