Posted on 08/20/2008 4:51:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
It's amazing how ideas with no merit become popular merely because they sound good.
Most every politician and pundit says "energy independence" is a great idea. Presidents have promised it for 35 years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were self-sufficient, protected from high prices, supply disruptions and political machinations?
The hitch is that even if the United States were energy independent, it would be protected from none of those things. To think otherwise is to misunderstand basic economics and the global marketplace.
To be for "energy independence" is to be against trade. But trade makes us as safe. Crop destruction from this summer's floods in the Midwest should remind us of the folly of depending only on ourselves. Achieving "energy independence" would expose us to unnecessary risks -- such as storms that knock out oil refineries or droughts that create corn -- and ethanol -- shortages.
Trade also saves us money. "We import energy for a reason," says the Cato Institute's energy expert, Jerry Taylor, "It's cheaper than producing it here at home. A governmental war on energy imports will, by definition, raise energy prices".
Anyway, a "domestic energy only" policy (call it "Drain America First"?) is a fantasy. America's demand for oil is too great for us to supply ourselves. Electricity we could provide. Not with windmills and solar panels -- they are not yet close to providing enough -- but coal and nuclear power could produce America's electricity.
But cars need oil. We don't have nearly enough.
That doesn't keep the presidential candidates from preying on the public's economic ignorance.
"I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lexington Project -- named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before," John McCain said. "This nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025".
Barack Obama, promising to "set America on path to energy independence," is upset that we send millions to other countries. "They get our money because we need their oil".
His concern that "they get our money" is echoed in commercials funded by Republican businessman T. Boone Pickens, who wants government subsidies for alternative energy. He tries to scare us by saying, "$700 billion are leaving this country to foreign nations every year -- the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind."
Don't Obama and Pickens realize that we get something useful for that money? It's not a "transfer"; it's a win-win transaction, like all voluntary trade. Who cares if the sellers live in a foreign country? When two parties trade, each is better off -- or the exchange would never have been made. We want the oil more than the money. They want the money more than the oil. They need us as much as we need them.
And Obama is wrong when he implies that America imports most of its oil from the Mideast. Most of it comes from Canada and Mexico.
McCain and Obama talk constantly about how much they will "invest" -- with money taken from the taxpayers, of course -- to achieve energy independence. "[W]e can provide loan guarantees and venture capital to those with the best plans to develop and sell biofuels on a commercial market," Obama said.
What makes Obama think he's qualified to pick the "best plans"? It's the robust competition of the free market that reveals what's best. Obama's program would preempt the only good method we have for learning which form of energy is best.
Has he learned nothing from the conceits of his predecessors? Jimmy Carter, saying that achieving energy independence was the "moral equivalent of war," called for "the most massive peacetime commitment of funds ... to develop America's own alternative". Then he wasted billions of our tax dollars on the utterly failed "synfuel" program.
McCain promises a $300-million prize to whoever develops a battery for an electric car. But the free market already provides plenty of incentive to invent a better battery. As George Mason University economist Donald Boudreaux writes, "Anyone who develops such a device will earn profits dwarfing $300 million simply by selling it on the market. There's absolutely no need for any such taxpayer-funded prize".
Central energy planning and government-funded prizes are economic idiocy.
In all candor...any “candidate” promising energy independence is a liar. All the politicians can do is erect regulatory and tax barriers to the American people’s efforts to make themselves energy independent. And they will continue to do so until We the People stop allowing them to do so.
I am all for free trade but free also means picking the best suppliers and I wish Stossell would put more energy into promoting lifting restrictions on American producers, not some rose colored glass scenario that ignores islamofacism.
Canada is our largest supplier, but combined with Mexico, they provide 32% of our imported Crude oil.
OPEC provide 57% of our imported crude oil.
Mexico total output and exports to us have been dropping for some time while Saudi Arabia has grown in the last couple years.
U.S. Crude Oil Imports by Country of Origin
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbblpd_m.htm
Semper Fi,
Kelly
The problem is some of our trading partners are our sworn enemies. Is bettering our enemies a wise policy?
The author ignores the basic arguments for energy independence. We are essential food independent, which means that no consortium of enemies can starve us by refusing to trade.
Even with the flooding, by the way, our corn crop is hitting a record high.
Russia (oil/natural gas), Iceland (geo-thermal), France (nukes), Brazil (switch grass, off shore oil) and Venezuela (oil) are leveraging their own resources so that no one can starve them out over fuel. There is nothing wrong with us doing the same. Germany and Japan in WWII were put at severe disadvantage, as they had their ability to obtain oil cut. Germany went to coal gassification (works, but expensive) and Japan attacked us to stop the disruption.
Energy independence does not mean that we get all are energy internally. It means that we have the means to sustain a worldwide embargo or blockade without having the whole structure of society collapse.
It also means that we don’t fund our enemies; and yes, Red China, Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia are enemies/threats.
Yes, they’ll still get their money by selling elsewhere, but it gives them less opportunity to have immediate leverage over our political and economic machinery, which Red China, for instance, already has.
LOL! Somebody finally said it! The idea of energy independence sounds good, makes for great demagoguing, but the idea is completely foolish.
We could probably produce domestic oil from coal and oil shale for less than we import it, but the private sector shies away from multibillion dollar investments to produce oil at $20-$60/barrel when OPEC produces oil for $5/barrel and can always drop their prices low enough to wipe out any potential profits.
Government subsidy-"investment" is not the way to go. It is the least efficient way because it promotes and retards the wrong ideas for the wrong reasons. Take off the bars to development and the most efficient i.e. quickest and cheapest systems will be developed. The market and the producers will make far better choices than any government officials. The market is not aimed at placating interest groups and certain blocs of voters. It is interested in making profit from production. Politicians and bureaucrats seek a different sort of profit that is not necessarily enhanced by actual production of anything but votes and bribes.
I was watching the financial analysts on FOX this weekend as they talked about Russia and what they’re doing in Georgia. When the idea of a boycott was floated, those fine patriotic analysts went ballistic over the idea of boycotting “free enterprise”.
In other words they were saying “Screw the Georgians, we’ll deal with the Russians.”
Well...that all sounds fine as long as the “global economy” is humming along smoothly. What happens if there’s a major war or other disruption? Or some of our global “friends” like Iran or Russia decide to jack around with our economy?
Further, adding to the total energy supply (nuclear plants etc.) can only be a good thing, since more supply will equal lower prices for everyone.
The idea that “energy independence” is a bad thing is the idiotic idea. :-)
(Now, as far as ‘$300 million government prizes’ for new battery designs...yeah that’s an idiotic idea too.;)
“The idea of energy independence sounds good, makes for great demagoguing, but the idea is completely foolish.”
Tell ya what, the next Marine funeral I attend, why don’t you come along and tell that to the widow & orphans of the dead Marine.
We can put a man on the moon, win two world wars simultaneously, win the Cold War without firing a shot but we can’t become energy independent? We can not only become “energy independent”, we can become the largest producer of energy in the world and that’s before we build one more nuclear power plant. And continue to be so long after the the Arabs’ and various and sundry tin horn dictators’ oil reserves have run dry.
Semper Fi,
Kelly
We all know what the Russia/Georgia war is about...that pipeline running through Georgia.
The best line I’ve heard lately is “when I look into Putin’s eyes I see K...G...B.”
Barack Obama “Without a doubt, this addiction is one of the most dangerous and urgent threats this nation has ever faced - from the gas prices that are wiping out your paychecks and straining businesses to the jobs that are disappearing from this state; from the instability and terror bred in the Middle East to the rising oceans and record drought and spreading famine that could engulf our planet”.
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This is without a doubt one of the stupidest statements I have heard in a long time. The terror spreading in the Middle East is primarily fueled by fundamental Islamic jihad. It is based on an intolerance for other religions and a hatred for our way of life and American culture, not the U.S. addiction to oil. Are we to believe that the the genocide in Darfur or the execution of gays in Iran is linked to our addiction to oil? What about the bus bombings in London or the train explosions in Spain or the attacks on Hindus in India? It’s hard not to call Barack Obama stupid when he says these things.
The notion, for instance, that synfuels was a failed program should get a little more intense scrutiny.
"Energy Independence" may be the cry, but lower energy dependence is the goal.
This article is wrong on so many levels that I actually don’t have the time (or the inclination) to reply to it.
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