Petroleum is distilled, or refined, into dozens of materials that are then used as raw materials for the manufacture of many of the things we touch every day. Today there is a lot of concern about the price of a barrel of oil and its impact on the economy. The relatively low cost of oil for the last one hundred years or so has contributed to it becoming an integral part of virtually every aspect of our lives.

Petroleum is used to make:

• Medicines;
• Moisturizers and other personal care products;
• Plastics (of countless types with many thousands of applications);
• Synthetic clothing;
• Foods;
• Cleaners;
• Graphite and other carbon based components;
• Paints and inks; and
• of course, fuels to heat our homes and to operate vehicles.

Our world, and the wonderful things in it that we are lucky enough to have, are precious and valuable. The low, low cost of fuel has facilitated the inexpensive manufacture of the things that make us comfortable and life “easy” compared to life elsewhere or in the past. Everything, everything—is valuable. It is that simple. It is no longer okay (and frankly never was) to casually shrug off tossing something into the trash because it needed to be repaired but since they could be replaced at such a low cost (think $150 TVs) people determine paying as much or more to repair it did not make sense. The result being that we have been frantically manufacturing things (using petroleum) to constantly replace things that should be repaired instead. Petroleum must be conserved and used where there are no apparent substitutes yet. Whether it is driven by price hikes or climate change concerns petroleum should no longer be “wasted” on traditional uses for which we have found substitutes such as wind, solar, and geothermal energy as well as corn and hemp-based materials to substitute for many petroleum based plastics.

The view of an oil field is not much different from a solar or wind farm that many refer to as an eyesore. Yet, oil fields have been tolerated because of the essential role that energy plays in our lives. Why then, so many rejections related to siting of renewable energy production projects?