xcel
01-22-2007, 10:41 AM
History does not give us cause for optimism over the long term. (http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/217428,CST-EDT-HUNT19.article)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/National_Energy_Policy.jpgChicago Sun Times - Steve Huntley - Jan. 19, 2007
US Energy Policy - What Energy Policy?
The news story was certainly an attention grabber: Chevrolet had introduced a plug-in hybrid car that could get 100 miles per gallon and go as far as 40 miles on batteries alone. At long last, you say to yourself, Detroit is seizing the initiative in pioneering cars to shake off our dependency on foreign oil.
Then came the cold splash of reality. General Motors acknowledged to the New York Times that the batteries needed to make the Volt run don't exist yet. The Volt is a concept car.
That's been the problem with American energy policy for too many decades -- more concept than ready-to-use batteries.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Bush is supposed to make headlines with an announcement about energy use and global warming. I have no doubt that there will be headlines; it's the follow-through toward energy security that I worry about.
We've been talking about energy independence since the Arab oil squeeze of the 1970s, but the reality is that this country in 2004, according to the Department of Energy, consumed 20.7 million barrels of crude oil and refined products per day, approximately 58 percent of which were imported from other countries. Imports, it says, could account for 62.5 percent of our oil use by 2030.
Speculation in Washington has it that Bush could call for more than 60 billion gallons of ethanol to be added annually to American gasoline production by 2030. That would be a big jump from the current goal of 7.5 billion gallons a year by 2012.
Not to demean that goal, but 2030 is 23 years away. Twenty-three years ago was 1984, the pre-Internet age. It was B.C. -- before cell phones came to dominate our personal communications. The VCR-Beta battle was still raging for playing movies in our dens.
The point is that a goal 23 years away seems to fall far short of the urgency of a Manhattan Project, the crash government program that developed the atomic bomb in just a few years during World War II. And that's the kind of priority our energy policy demands -- more important, that our national security demands.
Every dollar we spend on foreign oil ups the resources of nations who wish us ill, such as Iran and Venezuela. Oil revenues make wealthy anti-American regimes and forces in the Middle East. Petroleum dollars end up in the hands of terrorists who would kill and maim Americans at the first opportunity and stage mega-attacks such as 9/11 in an attempt to cripple our economy.
Even money in supposedly friendly countries finds its way to the wrong places. The U.S. Iraq Study Group reported recently that private citizens in Saudi Arabia, an empire of oil and Wahabbi radicalism, have given millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Trucks carrying boxes packed with cash are said to have traveled from Saudi Arabia to insurgent strongholds to buy weapons to kill American troops.
No one knows when the oil pipeline will be disrupted. For instance, Nigeria, an important oil supplier, has seen thousands of foreign oil workers flee as kidnappings and attacks have pushed that African nation toward what some industry executives described to Reuters as anarchy. European nations have seen Russia manipulate the flow of international gas pipelines for political purposes.
What if the worst fears about Iraq are realized and the region descends into a wide civil war? It's not improbable that Sunni and Shiite belligerents would attack each other's oil facilities.
All of the above are things we know. Who knows what unexpected regime change, revolution in a producing country or new strife engulfing oil-rich regions may emerge?
The market in the long haul will sort out energy prices and demand. But a significant disruption in the oil flow could mean job losses, business closings and other economic grief for millions of Americans before the markets worked. And national security is not an issue to be left to the vagaries of the markets or in the hands of oil-producing dictators.
Achieving oil security would require sacrifices, perhaps a gasoline tax increase, a floor on the price of imported oil so foreign producers couldn't undermine energy alternatives by temporarily plunging oil prices, and/or even higher food prices if agricultural products are to be the basis for a surge in ethanol fuel.
But the costs of continued complacency would be much higher. Bush could give his troubled presidency a big boost with Americans by articulating an urgent energy policy and following through on it. History, unfortunately, doesn't give us cause for optimism over the long term.
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/National_Energy_Policy.jpgChicago Sun Times - Steve Huntley - Jan. 19, 2007
US Energy Policy - What Energy Policy?
The news story was certainly an attention grabber: Chevrolet had introduced a plug-in hybrid car that could get 100 miles per gallon and go as far as 40 miles on batteries alone. At long last, you say to yourself, Detroit is seizing the initiative in pioneering cars to shake off our dependency on foreign oil.
Then came the cold splash of reality. General Motors acknowledged to the New York Times that the batteries needed to make the Volt run don't exist yet. The Volt is a concept car.
That's been the problem with American energy policy for too many decades -- more concept than ready-to-use batteries.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Bush is supposed to make headlines with an announcement about energy use and global warming. I have no doubt that there will be headlines; it's the follow-through toward energy security that I worry about.
We've been talking about energy independence since the Arab oil squeeze of the 1970s, but the reality is that this country in 2004, according to the Department of Energy, consumed 20.7 million barrels of crude oil and refined products per day, approximately 58 percent of which were imported from other countries. Imports, it says, could account for 62.5 percent of our oil use by 2030.
Speculation in Washington has it that Bush could call for more than 60 billion gallons of ethanol to be added annually to American gasoline production by 2030. That would be a big jump from the current goal of 7.5 billion gallons a year by 2012.
Not to demean that goal, but 2030 is 23 years away. Twenty-three years ago was 1984, the pre-Internet age. It was B.C. -- before cell phones came to dominate our personal communications. The VCR-Beta battle was still raging for playing movies in our dens.
The point is that a goal 23 years away seems to fall far short of the urgency of a Manhattan Project, the crash government program that developed the atomic bomb in just a few years during World War II. And that's the kind of priority our energy policy demands -- more important, that our national security demands.
Every dollar we spend on foreign oil ups the resources of nations who wish us ill, such as Iran and Venezuela. Oil revenues make wealthy anti-American regimes and forces in the Middle East. Petroleum dollars end up in the hands of terrorists who would kill and maim Americans at the first opportunity and stage mega-attacks such as 9/11 in an attempt to cripple our economy.
Even money in supposedly friendly countries finds its way to the wrong places. The U.S. Iraq Study Group reported recently that private citizens in Saudi Arabia, an empire of oil and Wahabbi radicalism, have given millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Trucks carrying boxes packed with cash are said to have traveled from Saudi Arabia to insurgent strongholds to buy weapons to kill American troops.
No one knows when the oil pipeline will be disrupted. For instance, Nigeria, an important oil supplier, has seen thousands of foreign oil workers flee as kidnappings and attacks have pushed that African nation toward what some industry executives described to Reuters as anarchy. European nations have seen Russia manipulate the flow of international gas pipelines for political purposes.
What if the worst fears about Iraq are realized and the region descends into a wide civil war? It's not improbable that Sunni and Shiite belligerents would attack each other's oil facilities.
All of the above are things we know. Who knows what unexpected regime change, revolution in a producing country or new strife engulfing oil-rich regions may emerge?
The market in the long haul will sort out energy prices and demand. But a significant disruption in the oil flow could mean job losses, business closings and other economic grief for millions of Americans before the markets worked. And national security is not an issue to be left to the vagaries of the markets or in the hands of oil-producing dictators.
Achieving oil security would require sacrifices, perhaps a gasoline tax increase, a floor on the price of imported oil so foreign producers couldn't undermine energy alternatives by temporarily plunging oil prices, and/or even higher food prices if agricultural products are to be the basis for a surge in ethanol fuel.
But the costs of continued complacency would be much higher. Bush could give his troubled presidency a big boost with Americans by articulating an urgent energy policy and following through on it. History, unfortunately, doesn't give us cause for optimism over the long term.