The Private Sector piece "Land of the Free?" Dec. 11 was truly appalling on many levels. Author Mr. Wishing displays a total lack of knowledge regarding energy, oil production and utilization, and civilization's utter dependence on it for sustaining the lives of the roughly 6.5 billion people now on the planet.

Mr. Wishing implies that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska holds vast oil reserves -- "the equivalent of 30 years of imports from Saudi Arabia," while the USGS, the U.S. Department of Energy, and many others have reported that, at about 4 GB (billion barrels) the ANWR reserves are on the order of one-third that of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay and a small fraction of the (realistically estimated) Saudi 160 GB. Hence, at our present but ever increasing utilization of 22 MB (million barrels) per day in the United States, this 4 GB represents only about a six-month supply. Moreover, Prudhoe Bay is now struggling to maintain a 0.5 MB output and, though it is a minor oil field, it, like all the world's major oil major fields, is at or beyond maximum output flow rate. Yes, Peak Oil. It is a reality that is poised to make itself known to the largely clueless American public of which Mr. Wishing proves himself to be a prime example. Mr. Wishing's brother-in-law's SUV will soon be as useless as Mr. Wishing's recommendations, which I'd summarize as "why save anything since we'll just use the savings up anyway?". If this is vision and values, then I've got a Chevy Suburban that gets 65 mpg.

But it goes way, way beyond gas prices and the fate of ANWR. Remember those 6.5 billion people? They all depend on food, water, warmth, transportation, medicine, various other machines, and the plethora of everyday things that industrial civilization has provided upon the basis of one all-important commodity: cheap oil. This also is the basis of our expectation of an ever-increasing GNP, which is at the heart of all the assumptions underlying our economy, such as compounding interest and paper money.

In essence, we have raided the earth's energy trust fund and we have now used roughly one-half (and the easy-to-get half, at that) of the 2-trillion barrel total planetary endowment. It's been a great party, but it is instructive to recall that before we undertook the industrialization of civilization, for all those millions of years, the earth's human carrying capacity was limited to no more than about 1 billion to 2 billion people by the energy of sunlight and by nitrogen fixed naturally in the soil so essential in growing our food.

Due to the earth's rapid population growth and the ever-increasing per-capita energy demand caused by the rest of the world now wanting our "American way of life," the remaining reserves will become expensive to produce, fought over, and, ultimately, no longer cheap. In fact, this has already begun -- just look to $100-a-barrel oil and Iraq.

I shudder to think about humans transitioning back to the historically sustainable 1 to 2 billion person level over the next half century and what that means. Actually, I'm afraid that we're already screwed. Don't believe me? Get on the Web and learn about Peak Oil.
JAY MARCHETTI
Pittsburgh Firmware Inc.

Ross

Lee Wishing's Private Sector column "Land of the Free?" (Dec. 11) clearly illustrates the dilemma we must face as citizens: the "freedom" to consume, vs our concern for the well-being of future generations.

Current estimates are that about one-half of the world's supply of cheap oil has already been consumed, and that one-half of the total consumption to date has occurred between the mid-1980s and now. Opinions may differ as to the accuracy of these estimates, but does it really matter whether the true fractions are one-fourth, or perhaps three-fourths, instead of one-half? The plain truth is that the world is consuming irreplaceable petroleum resources at alarming rates.

The writer states that opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling could "... make billions of barrels of oil available" for consumption. Let's assume for the moment that the size of this reserve is 100 billion barrels. At the current worldwide consumption rate of roughly 70 million barrels per day, ANWR would be depleted in less than four years. Yes, ANWR production would not actually supply all of the world's oil markets simultaneously, as implied here, but this example makes the case that present-day rates of consumption are not sustainable.

All of us must decide whether we place a higher value on the gratification of unimpeded consumption or on the importance of doing all we can to extend the lifetimes of resource reserves for the benefit of our children and grandchildren.
STAN SATTINGER
Bethel Park