From a reader:

I like your comment regarding oil being a green energy source. Some numbers can be useful in demonstrating the feasibility and impact of “green” solutions. Here’s an article on green power.
As you can see, a nice new wind farm is online. It produces 150 megawatts and covers 14,000 acres. That’s a little short of 22 square miles. So, how much is 150 megawatts? Well, here in New York State, north of New York City, we have a massively dangerous power generating source known as Indian Point, a nuclear site that has been producing electrical power since the 1970s. It once had three reactors, but only two operate now. How much power is produced from this 35 year old facility? Roughly 2,000 megawatts. I am, for the time being,leaving out the somewhat obvious fact that Indian Point produces electricity all night, when it is cloudy, and even when the wind isn’t blowing, unlike solar or wind power. Let’s move on. In order to replace this facility with wind farms, how big would they have to be? About 300 square miles. How big is that? Westchester County, which is where the Indian Point facility is located is 450 square miles, so we could replace that facility (which is located on about 240 acres of land) with a wind farm if we can just free up about 2/3 of Westchester County, assuming that the wind characteristics are good. Just install them in the middle of nowhere? There are a number of physical limitations related to moving large amounts of electricity over long distances, which is one reason that power plants tend t be located near population centers. That’s just one facility. There are many others (none “green”) in the New York City area. I wonder if all of Long Island would work? The wind is probably pretty good there. I know. I know. Details, details.

And from a different reader:

Jonah,
I like to match up numbers to reality and put them in perspective. When the President said last night we are running out of oil I had the vision of him sitting atop a BP gusher trying to convince the American people of that tired cliché.
I did a little googling and found that the US uses 20 million barrels of oil a day. That makes the 60 thousand barrels gushing from the sea floor right now a little more than 1 day’s usage for our country. That is just one well. There are 500 thousand wells in the US and we produce 25% of our current requirements. We produce 5 million barrels a day, so this one well is(could be) over 1% of our production. If we just found 350 more wells like this one, in ANWR or off the coast of Calif, or NJ, we could be oil independent. We could stop funding Middle-eastern and South American dictatorships by purchasing there oil. We could generate revenue to fund basic research into new energy sources. We could keep the price of oil stable and therefore add stability to our currently shaky economy.
To your article about Green Oil, it reminded me of how Petroleum saved the whales. Oil, in the form of Kerosene, replaced whale oil in all the lamps just in time to keep the very last of the whale stocks from being wiped out. Standard Oil and J.D. Rockefeller probably saved more whales than Green Peace. In truth Green Peace probably would have had many fewer whales to save if Rockefeller and Standard Oil hadn’t come along in the nick of time.
I always enjoy your metaphors, thanks for keeping us entertained, informed and thinking.

Update: As readers have noted, this second email’s math is just off. 20 million barrels a day = 60,000 barrels a day? Should have read this more carefully.