Posted on 06/08/2008 10:15:16 AM PDT by TennTuxedo
You’re assuming that somehow, if we used alternative forms of energy, all our problems would miraculously disappear.
The problem with petroleum isn’t OPEC, its government. It doesn’t matter if we move to coal, or nukes, or solar, or wind, or fusion, government is going to milk energy production until it kills the golden goose.
So all the pain that our citizens will experience (and there will be pain) will be for nothing. 50 years from now, if we have the same meddling and market manipulation by government, regardless if we are using oil or some other form of energy, we will have this exact same problem.
Screed off!
Once again, in your limited ability to ward off hysteria, you didn't answer my questions.
Sigh...
I thought this one time you would use reason instead of histrionics. Oh, well.....
Not as long as the Invisible Hand of Supply & Demand is tied up by the all too visible hand of the EnviroWhacko controlled US Congress!
It is amazing that so many cannot understand that it is exactly right to hold the GOP 100% responsible for where we are. 6 years of WH + Senate + House and we did nothing except run up the national debt $3.5 T.
Thank you!
Those same people will decry the blind following of the lefties!
Date rape drugs in the congressional water supply?
Oh, man! That's a good one. Thanks for the laugh.
Oh, shoot! It could be true.
Now what? I hope the black GOP helicopters don't come here...
Posted on 06/07/2008 12:08:06 PM PDT by DaveTesla
Politically Contrived
Gasoline Shortage
CRAIG S. MARXSEN
The 1972 book The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al. 1972) sensationalized
the theory that natural-resource depletion and rising pollution would soon
bring catastrophe. The authors theorized that, among other problems, running
out of basic resources such as petroleum would cause a collapse of industrial and
agricultural production as well as a resulting loss of a large part of the world’s human
population. An “energy crisis” immediately following the book’s publication enhanced
its credibility and brought it a great deal of public attention, although the
energy crisis later proved to have been only a temporary anomaly caused largely by
price controls. Recent, substantial increases in gasoline prices may revitalize the catastrophists’
conviction that imminent fossil-resource exhaustion demands prompt substitution
of renewable fuel sources, such as ethanol. Convinced that because fossil
fuels apparently are nearly exhausted as a practical energy source and we can abandon
them almost costlessly, opponents of fossil fuels advocate drastic reduction of their use
to prevent a ruinous crisis of carbon dioxide pollution. Yet the alleged crisis requires
a near-zero discount rate to raise the prorated present value of damage, per gallon of
gasoline combusted, far above the relatively modest figure obtained by use of a market
interest rate for discounting purposes.
A more serious potential economic crisis caused by rising motor-fuel prices, in
contrast, does not spring from pollution or resource exhaustion, but from the catastrophists’
mistaken belief in what has become their almost self-fulfilling prophecy
(see Marxsen 2003). Through the political system, they have promoted regulatory
actions that are discouraging the investment that would otherwise have prevented
today’s worsening refining bottleneck. Obstruction of investments in gasoline refineries,
achieved by regulatory interventions, is probably a more significant threat to the
affordability of gasoline than any approaching exhaustion of gasoline’s fossil sources.
Reestablishment of refiners’ reasonable property rights and adoption of strict liability
as the major instrument for controlling carbon dioxide and refinery pollution might
end what otherwise may become an ever-worsening, regulatory-induced “energy
crisis.”
The Price Mechanism
Robert Solow responded promptly to The Limits to Growth. He explained that the
price mechanism would induce substitution of alternative sources as oil became
scarcer (1973, 44–47). Production methods that rely on relatively more abundant
natural resources eventually will substitute for dwindling supplies of oil that had
previously been cheap and easy to exploit (Solow 1974, 3–5). Now, more than thirty
years later, specific forms of such substitution have become more visible to those
looking ahead toward practical alternatives.
Although crude oil still appears to be relatively abundant and supplies most of
the world’s material from which gasoline is refined, other fossil sources of gasoline
seem to offer commercially viable alternatives. These sources include methane (or
natural gas), coal, bitumen obtained from tar sands or oil shale, and crude petroleum’s
“bottom of the barrel” components, such as asphalt. Let us ignore nonfossil feedstocks,
such as corn and turkey guts, because they escape political opposition from
opponents of fossil fuels and, in any event, have potential to make only a small
contribution to present rates of gasoline consumption. Because available stocks of
petroleum, methane, coal, tar sands, and oil shale are sufficient for centuries to come,
however, the possibility of sustaining supplies of ordinary gasoline for motor fuel at
reasonable prices appears virtually assured, regardless of nonfossil sources, if the political
system will permit. Conversely, a complete transition to nonfossil sources at this
time would doubtlessly result in much higher gasoline prices.
Fossil-Energy Sufficiency
A great deal of fossil-fuel material remains buried in accessible places. In the U.S.
Department of Energy’s International Energy Outlook 2006, world energy use is
projected to rise from 421 quadrillion Btus, or “quads,” in 2003 to 722 quads in
2030 (2006b, 1). Paul Holtberg, director of the Demand and Integration Division of
the U. S. Department of Energy, and Robert Hirsch, a senior energy program advisor
at Science Applications International Corporation, estimate that 13,400 quads of
conventional crude oil and 14,000 quads of conventional natural gas remain exploitable.
At least another 15,000 quads are available from unconventional sources of
crude oil, such as tar sands and oil shale. In the lower forty-eight states of the United
States, geopressured brine and gas hydrates may offer as much as 335,000 quads,
according to Holtberg and Hirsch (2003). Bob Williams (2003a), former executive
editor of the Oil and Gas Journal, reports a global methane hydrate endowment more
than 190 times the amount in the United States. Worldwide coal resources exceed
135,000 quads, according to Holtberg and Hirsch. At the 2003 rate of global energy
use, and not counting the geopressured brine and methane hydrate endowment
outside the lower forty-eight states, such fossil-fuel reserves would apparently last
more than 1,200 years, and they would last more than 700 years at the projected 2030
rate of consumption. Moreover, Holtberg and Hirsch’s estimates seem to be conservative
ones. David L. Greene, Janet L. Hopson, and Jia Li estimate in a report
prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy by Oak Ridge National Laboratory that
the world’s remaining supply of exploitable oil (including that from shale and tar
sands) is about 106,572.2 quads, with about 32,885.6 quads recoverable under
technologies and prices expected to prevail before 2050 (2003, 9). Thus, fossil hydrocarbons
for making gasoline and other liquid fuels will almost certainly be adequate
for centuries to come. The real obstacle is the world’s political systems.
Obstructing Refining
Government interventions have constrained the petroleum-refining industry for decades.
A 2004 U.S. Department of Energy National Petroleum Council report documents
a variety of impediments to expansion of refining capacity. Not a single new-site
refinery has been built in the United States since the mid-1970s (Shackouls 2004,
I-19). From 1981 to 2002, the average return on equity for petroleum companies was
11.3 percent, and the S&P 500 average was 12.2 percent (I-14). The return on capital
employed in refining and marketing was only 5.3 percent, compared with a return on
capital of 7.7 percent for the industry as a whole (I-14). The low returns reportedly
derive from significant regulatory-driven investments that yield no return, combined
with the highly competitive nature of the business (I-16). Building a new refinery
involves a huge investment and is therefore subject to tremendous losses from any
delays. Environmental regulation—including New Source Review enforcement and
National Ambient Air Quality Standards—and uncertainties generated by waivers,
exceptions, and amendments to regulations create strong disincentives for investment
in new refineries (I-6). Ben Lieberman (2006), a senior policy analyst at the Heritage
Foundation, contends that as much as 25 percent of total capital outlays in the
refining sector are devoted to environmental regulatory compliance. Ever-changing
specifications for reformulated gasoline and low-sulfur diesel frustrate refiners’ efforts
to achieve maximum volumetric efficiency during peak demand periods and further
reduce the return on an investment in a new refinery (Shackouls 2004, I-18). The
government’s obstructions of the use of carbon fuels somewhat resembles its more
visible prevention of the expansion of nuclear power in spite of engineering advances
that have almost totally eliminated the more significant nuclear-safety issues that once
seemed relevant.
The potential for regulatory harassment may make refiners with less-thanextraordinary
prospective profits unwilling to remain in business in coming years. In
a 2002 report, Jerry Hill, principal environmental engineer at Bechtel’s Houston
office, illustrates what had then become a strategy emphasized by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
had increased its focus on petroleum refineries, and inspection teams made a
number of detailed audits, each spending many days searching for violations of federal
and state pollution regulations. These armies of fault-finding inspectors compiled and
submitted to the U.S. Justice Department and filed in district federal courts long lists
of alleged violations of pollution laws. At the top of Hill’s list of violations was failure
to obtain construction permits, failure to install the best available control technology,
and flaring gas that contained sulfur. Other violations included insufficient labeling of
containers and inadequate record keeping. Hill describes the prompt and costly defeat
of a refiner who decided to go to trial. Thirty-six refineries in nineteen states settled
these actions for the most part with negotiated consent decrees that involved millions
of dollars for remedial expenditures and additional millions for payment of fines. The
consent decrees typically remained in force for years. Hill notes that such actions
against refiners “have made them subject to additional standards and regulatory supervision
without the typical rule-making process.” He describes settlements as “giving
the EPA joint dominion with several owners in the daily operation of a number
of refineries” (2002, 76). Affected refineries account for about one-third of U.S.
capacity. Fines ranging up to $10 million went to the U.S. government, with a
sizeable portion going to the regulatory agency involved. Hill’s report is not a polemic
to sway public opinion, but only a descriptive article in the trade journal Hydrocarbon
Processing. To an industry outsider, however, the account raises suspicion of an abuse
of regulatory authority for the purpose of obtaining, by extortion, nearly unqualified
pledges of compliance with bureaucrats’ dictates that are unbounded by statutory
limitations.
Al Gore’s near victory in the 2000 presidential election suggests that opponents
of fossil fuels continue to gain political traction. When subsequently asked what he
would have done differently had he won the election, Gore told George Stephanopoulos,
“I would have urged the Congress and done my best to lead the country
to take on this climate crisis, become independent of carbon-based fossil fuels as
quickly as we can, to shift toward conservation, efficiency and renewable energy”
(Stephanopoulos 2006). With this expressed ambition, Gore presumably represents a
powerful segment of the voting public that political candidates of both major parties
seem increasingly willing to placate. This tendency suggests an increasingly effective
influence of the voters lying between the median and the extreme, individuals for
whom, as John Brätland observes, “environmental enjoyment may be impossible as
long as the petroleum industry continues to exist” (2004, 530).
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One has to wonder..
Does Gore and his crowd sit around in the evening and toast their glasses of Chablis while laughing hysterically at us?
Truth is we have more energy, particularly hydrocarbon fuels than we know what to do with.
Arresting man's development and controlling the population (serfs) is what this really about.
From The Article:
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/415215
(A must read as gas to liquid processes can use these reserves with a short time to market)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2027596/posts
Yes, if we want to return to living like people did in the 1800's in the US, i.e. no central heating, a horse in the barn, etc. Actually, that's the purpose of the envirowhackos - to return us to that style of 3rd world living and to destroy the middle class, the bourgeois.
That’s exactly right. They need to make a big deal about this, but I’m not hearing much of anything out of any of them. Of course John McCain has already painted himself into the “we won’t drill in Anwr” corner.
We can't allow that - you might refuse to vote for more of the same in '08!
Appreciate all of your insight. I am struggling to form a logical opinion on the situation and your input helps.
Given the present slate of candidates, how will I do that, pray tell?
You are misinformed. Bush and the Republican Congress (except for a few rinos) have promoted more domestic energy development, both conventional and non conventional. They promoted oil development in ANWR, the OCS, and Rocky Mountains. They advocated fewer restrictions on refinery development and gasoline blends. They also promoted development of clean coal, nuclear, and renewable energy sources.
The rats and their rino allies have obstructed the policies put forth by Bush and Republicans. Activist judges have sided with enviro groups to halt and increase the cost of energy development. The environment legislation passed throughout the last 35 years gives enviro groups the power to obstruct energy development. The fruits of terrible policy are having an impact. If global warming legislation becomes law, the situation will become much worse.
I also blame the spinelessness of certain recent Republican leaders.
You are sadly misinformed. "renewables" are not going to solve our energy problems, clean coal is proving to be incredibly expensive and unattractive - and if you are worried about greenhouse gases it does nothing about that - and this administration has done nothing that is effective for nuclear.
My post did not indicate that renewables will solve the energy situation. Renewables may become an important part of our energy portfolio if the mandates are eliminated. There is promising technology for coal gasification and other coal approaches. Energy investors are best qualified to make investment decisions about new energy sources.
The Bush and Republican Congress policies on energy have been far superior to the rat proposals except on the renewable mandates. These mandates on corn-based and other bio fuels are terrible policy. I am baffled by Bush's support for these mandates. It is not clear that federal legislation alone will propel nuclear plant construction and refinery construction. There are so many roadblocks to energy development at every level of government. It would take very strong federal legislation to unlock the gridlock enabled by past energy and environmental legislation.
As evidence, look at the attempts to block refinery development and expansion. In South Dakota, a new refinery was just provided rezoning at the county level. The greens and NIMBYs have vowed to stop development. In Missouri, a substantial refinery expansion has been stopped by an appeals judge. In Arizona, a new refinery has been proposed for many years. Years of litigation have stopped development although there is still a chance the refinery may be built. Although there are tens of proposals for new nuclear plants, I do not see any new plants online for 15 to 25 years at best.
High oil and energy prices are enough to stimulate development of energy sources, both conventional and alternative. Tax incentives to recoup development costs over shorter time periods are also useful. Federal research dollars for pilot projects and basic research are also useful to an extent.
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