On the bright side – The upside of high oil prices

An attempt to look at the bright side. The media writes a lot about all the problems the high oil price causes. The problems it causes in house hold budgets, how it affects the US trade deficit and how it drives inflation but we don’t take the time to see the positive effects associated with a higher oil price. You might not think the benefits are large enough to offset the drawbacks and you might be right but it can none the less be good to be aware of the benefits. Below I will list a few of the benefits but there are many more.

Reduced oil consumption

The increased oil price means that people drive less which reduces the carbon dioxide emissions. It might feel like an inconvenient to walk to the movies instead of taking the car or otherwise change ones travel habitats but it do help the environment. Even if we look beyond our personal driving habits we can see that high oil prices can have more far reaching benefits as it creates an incentive for car manufacturers to make more fuel effective car as a mean to compete in the market. It can also change the buying pattern towards not buying bigger cars than we actually need. The high energy price can also affect our consumption in other areas such as air tickets. Hopefully some of these changes will stick even after the oil price has return to more acceptable levels.

Alternative energy sources

Higher oil prices makes new greener energy sources more economic viable. Some green energy sources become more compatible and are economically competitive when energy and oil prices rise. Higher oil and energy prices also create more incentive for companies to develop and refine green technologies and energy sources as there is a potentially larger, more lucrative market available to sell these products on. One green energy source that becomes more viable with the higher energy price is algae oil. Algae can be used to produce high quality oil that can be used to produce gasoline and even jet fuel. Algae is much more productive than other crops and one acre used for algae farming can produce several hundred times more oil than other crops used to produce green fuel such s corn. A few algae oil plants are being built this year but the technology is still to be considered experimental. I will post more info on algae oil in a separate article later this week if you want to know more about it. Algae oil is just one example on green energies that becomes more viable when oil prices are higher.

Unfortunately high oil prices also increase the pressure to explore oil resources in sensitive are such as in Alaska and of the Florida coast.

Some fish species get a much needed break

The high oil prices can give a much needed breather for some fish species as fishermen no longer find it economically viable to fish these species or in certain areas. An example of one fish that might end up benefiting from the high oil price is the idiotfish. The idiotfish is a deep sea fish living of the coast of British Columbia and is an appreciated food item in parts of Asia. It was listed as a species of special concern last year by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. The high oil prices have resulted in large parts of the deep sea fishing fleet in British Columbia’ staying in port or fishing in shallower water closer to land. This gives the idiotfish population a much needed chance to rebound. Other fish are in a similar situation and might benefit from the high oil prices.

This was just a few of the benefits of higher oil prices.

Nothing you have read will make it less painful to pay the current gas prices but it can still be nice to know that this misery have a silver lining.