Posted on 11/15/2007 2:20:43 PM PST by ddtorquee
Saudi Arabia is the primary global financier of the Islamist terror cult. Until the Saudis started racking up billions in inflated oil revenues in the 1970s, the Wahhabi movement was regarded by Muslims the world over as little more than primitive insanity. Without rivers of treasure to feed its roots, this horrific movement could neither grow nor thrive. It is the Saudis’ unlimited funds—over $200 billion in foreign exchange earnings in 2006—that have allowed them to buy up the faculties of the Islamic world’s leading intellectual centers; to build or take over thousands of mosques; to establish thousands of radical madrassas... Arab oil revenues have underwritten news outlets that propagandize hatefully against the United States and the West, supported training centers for terrorists, paid bounties to the families of suicide bombers, and funded the purchase of weapons and explosives. We have been subsidizing a war against ourselves.
...Our responses to these provocations have been muted and hapless because any forceful action on our part against nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran could result in the disruption of oil supplies that the world economy is utterly dependent upon. We cannot stand up to our enemies because we rely upon them for the fuel that is our economic lifeblood. We pay them for their oil and they make war on us.
In light of these realities, U.S. energy policy for the last three decades has been a scandal. The time has come for change. To liberate ourselves from the threat of foreign economic domination, to destroy the economic power of the terrorists’ financiers, and to give ourselves the free hand necessary to deal forcefully with them, we must devalue their resources and increase the value of our own. We can do this by...
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewatlantis.com ...
There is no such USA policy.
Sure there is. Our government panders to the environmentalists, translating into no new domestic oil production, no new LNG terminals, and no nuclear or coal power plants.
Without the ban on these things, we’d not have the energy problems we have today.
There is no ban. It is a figment. It’s just that permits are not being issued for some projects. The USA is third in the world in oil production and not much behind Saudi or Russia. Net importer, but that is a different issue.
We are financing both sides of the so-called war on terror.
Another article that fails to understand that the problem is not that jihadis are funded by us but rather that they are funded at all. If we waste money on more expensive alternatives to Saudi oil this will only weaken us unnecessarily. The jihadis will get their revenues just the same when the Saudis sell their oil to others. Our present policy of using the cheapest energy sources available and draining Arabia first is the correct one.
We’ve heard that old song since oil went from $20 to $30. When Hillary becomes president, which she will if gas prices are $3-$4 next summer and fall, she will slap price controls on oil to the cheers of consumers throughout the land. There is such a thing as being too greedy, and no one likes or admires Big Oil and their Arab bedfellows.
If so, what is it?
“If we waste money on more expensive alternatives to Saudi oil this will only weaken us unnecessarily.”
According to the article, methanol and ethanol are roughly the equivalent of $2 gallon gasoline. Or $54/bbl oil.
So it is not more expensive than the PRESENT cost of Saudi oil at $95/barrel.
The weakness of the article is that it doesn’t address the cost of methanol or ethanol and its effect on the price of food if demand for fuel alcohol was to increase. The price of alcohol for fuel would be going up at the same time as the price of oil went down due to lower demand. They might converge with both oil and alcohol at the equivalent of $70/barrel, which is not going to make much of a dent in money for terrorists.
The author mentions that the US would not be able to supply enough fuel alcohol itself, but would have to rely on imports — from farmers rather than OPEC, but still imports. “Not enough” ? No kidding. I saw an estimate somewhere that for California to replace 10% of its gasoline usage with ethanol, it would have to increase the amount of land being farmed by over 4 million acres. California currently has only 11 million acres for all crops combined. Where we would get the water for all that additional farmland is a mystery, since we already have water shortages.
and that will repeal the “law of supply and demand”?
Such things have been tried since there has been a central government somewhere in the world strong enough and arrogant enough to try.
The result has always been the same eventual disaster & consequences far worst then the initial economic problem.
Also we have an enormous distribution system for gasoline that we have already built and paid for. Distributing alcohol fuels is a physically different process and would entail significant additional expense over the cost of alcohol production.
Oh, I know this very well. Saudi cost of production is under $5/bbl. “Exploration” cost is a laughable $0.10/bbl.
If alternatives from alcohol, oil shale, tar sands, etc. were to become a serious threat, the Saudi’s could increase production in a very short time frame and drive the market price down to < $10/bbl and still make a profit.
As I mentioned, ethanol is NOT a viable alternative as the amount of cropland required gets ridiculous. Methanol from coal is a possibility, but would require huge investment and huge risk that OPEC countries’ actions could pull the rug out from under that investment. The existing delivery infrastructure will work for 50/50 mixtures of gasoline and methanol.
I think it would be a good thing to push OPEC into an attempt to drive out alternatives as competition, as the money lost on $50/bbl alternatives would be small compared to the savings achieved by bringing the market price down from $95/bbl.
None of us here on FR are big-government advocates, but it might be worth considering this from security and economic warfare aspects. In that light, it might be worth it for the government to guarantee a $50/bbl purchase of any domestically produced methanol, shale oil, etc. if the market price falls below that price. I am not talking about subsidies on each barrel, but a price guarantee that wouldn’t come into effect until the market price for all oil falls below $50. It would eliminate the investment risk by having a customer always waiting at $50/bbl, increasing capacity and bringing down the market price no matter what OPEC did.
This is a case where a few billion tax dollars could save consumers a trillion dollars.
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