All of this craziness makes me wonder: what’s the point of all of this? Why even bother with domestic off-shore drilling at all? It’s often been said by level-headed observers that tapping off-shore capacity wouldn’t do anything to lower prices here in the US.

And what do you know — we can use our handy-dandy gasoline demand model to figure out how much of an effect on prices this oil would have. Instead of explaining gasoline consumption (making consumption the dependent or Y variable), we now explain gasoline prices (by making prices the Y variable.)

According to Energy Information Administration, U.S. off-shore capacity would max out at around 200,000 barrels per day. In gallon terms, this is about 8.4 million gallons per day, or .03 gallons (110 ml) per U.S. resident per day.

If we re-estimate the equation from several posts back, we get the following inverse demand function:

Here, we see that price goes down by 17 cents for every extra gallon consumed per person per day. δ is monthly variation; ε is error; Q is quantity per person per day; U is unemployment; and P is price, in cents.

Plugging in .03 gallons per person per day, the yield from U.S. off-shore drilling, we find that U.S. gas prices would be about .467 cents lower than before.

Long story short: off-shore drilling isn’t worth it. A .467 cent decrease in gas prices while running the risk of destroying our ecosystem in the same way the Louisiana coast is now being destroyed?

Not worth it.

In other news: after 60 years, Jimmy Carter has left the Southern Baptist Church over its “subjugation of women”. Quoth Carter:

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities. [...] The truth is that male religious leaders have had — and still have — an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world.

I wholeheartedly agree with Carter, by the way, and I think it’s incredible that, after six decades of public involvement, he’s chosen to distance himself. I would go a step further, however: male religious leaders have used their “option to interpret” for many more purposes than subjugating women. Selective use of biblical passages is hypocrisy of the first order: you can’t both outlaw homosexuality and eat shellfish; you can’t both think of women as your property and give her gold or pearls. Picking and choosing is not an option if your world view is as black and white as your favorite biblical commands say it is.