Kerry Urging Energy Independence in U.S.

BOSTON (AP) - With the start of the summer driving season approaching and gasoline prices soaring, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Saturday the United States should strive for energy independence.

``There are two reasons why we cannot be asleep at the wheel during this current energy crisis,'' Kerry said in the weekly Democratic radio address. ``First, soaring energy prices are putting our economy at risk and second, our dependence on Middle East oil is putting our national security at risk. But it doesn't have to be this way.''

Separately, Kerry's campaign objected Saturday to a suggestion during a radio interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell that Kerry has blamed oil for the war in Iraq. Kerry has said repeatedly he does not believe the Bush administration started the war to control Iraq's oil.

In his radio address, the Massachusetts senator said the United States should divert oil being used to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the short term and bring it to market to bring down prices. The White House contends that would have only a negligible impact on pump prices. Kerry also said the country's leaders should demand that Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing nations increase supply.

He said his long-term strategy as president would include investments in alternative fuels and new technologies that are more fuel-efficient. He said he would establish tax credits to help make fuel-efficient cars more affordable.

``Our dependence on foreign oil is a problem we must solve together the only way we can - by inventing our way out of it,'' Kerry said.

The average price per gallon rose to $2.017 this week, the first time the national average has exceeded $2. Kerry and other Democrats blame President Bush and Republican leaders for allowing prices to rise so high, and his radio address reiterated the case he made earlier this week on the campaign trail.

``We're at war and families are struggling to make ends meet, especially with rising gas prices,'' Kerry said. ``For our security, our economy and our environment, we must make America energy independent.''

Kerry often tells voters at his campaign rallies that ``no young American in uniform ought to ever be held hostage to America's dependence on oil from the Middle East.'' He has said that refers not to the war in Iraq but to the potentially volatile situation in an unstable region.

Powell was asked about Kerry's statement in an interview with Westwood One Radio on Friday. He replied that Kerry was using it as an ``applause line'' but was not stating a clear policy for Iraq.

``That's not sending our troops overseas for oil,'' Powell said. ``That's sending our troops overseas to put in place a democratic nation rested on a foundation of openness and human rights that will be a friend and partner of the United States.''

Kerry spokesman David Wade said the Bush administration is trying to mislead Americans about the challenge of oil dependence.

``For years John Kerry has warned the Bush Administration about our dangerous dependence on foreign oil from the volatile Middle East,'' Wade said. Still, he said, ``George Bush has no plan to liberate Americans from our fossil fuel dependence on countries like Saudi Arabia, which can arbitrarily raise the price of oil and hold families hostage at the gas pump, and fragile regimes which hold so much of the world's oil.''

"That's not sending our troops overseas for oil," Powell said. "That's sending our troops overseas to put in place a democratic nation rested on a foundation of openness and human rights that will be a friend and partner of the United States."

Hell, I'd rather they'd gone overseas for oil than to play globocop. If that's what the administration is using now for their justification for going into Iraq, it sets a baaaad precedent for the future. I wish they'd stand firm on the real reason we went in...to stop Saddam from procuring more NBC weapons, and to strip him of those he had...and quit playing into the hands of the CommieLibs and their media lap dogs.

For cryin' out loud, chemical weapons have been used on our troops, only this week, and do we hear a peep from Bush and Co. about it? Why the hell aren't they shouting it from the rooftops? Sarin, mustard gas? Aren't these WMD?

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

The problem is that a tank full of gasoline (or diesel, or jet fuel) packs far more energy than the same weight - or volume - of dynamite, and nothing else matches its combination of energy density, safety, ease of storage and transport, and cost. In fact, when the price of natural petroleum gets high enough, the best solution might be to synthesize petroleum fuels rather than to switch to alternative energy vectors.

The fact is that oil provides over 95% of our transportation fuel. Half of all crude oil becomes gasoline, and another fourth becomes diesel or jet fuel. Heavier fractions become heating oil, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, asphalt, and other opportunity uses. Still, we use crude oil as an energy SOURCE. 80% of the energy it contains in the ground ends up in the tank for us to burn. Nature was nice to us.

One of the most efficient ways to increase gasoline supplies would be to extract more from existing feedstocks - the other fourth - with better refining techniques. We absolutely need more refining capacity. We are operating at close to 98% of capacity today, and the existing plants are getting really old, even with continuous maintenance and improvements.

Ethanol? It's been done, in Germany during the war, in South Africa during the apartheid embargo, and even in Brazil today. But in Brazil, where it is made most cheaply, from sugar cane, it is only a shrinking 20% of the fuel supply. Even heavily subsidized, it is much more expensive than petroleum.

In this country, using corn as the feedstock (and using chemical and enzyme treatments to extract from leaves and stalks as well as the digestible sugars and starches) would yield an average of about 8 barrels per acre per crop. And each barrel of fuel grade ethanol contains only 2/3 the energy of a barrel of gasoline. To replace ONLY 20% of our current petroleum consumption would require NEW irrigated land equal to Texas plus Tennessee, which, I believe, puts this plan in the same category of solutions as antigravity and matter transporters.

Hydrogen? Promises, promises. It's everywhere around us, but not in its free form (H2). Most of it is locked up in water, and much of the rest in hydrocarbons - yes, petroleum and other gas and liquid fuels (NOT coal, which is just carbon). Because hydrogen is not free, it must be extracted from its feedstock.

Electrolysis from water requires about twice the energy that will be available as fuel, but that is before compressing the H2 gas into tanks for distribution, which could require as much as 1/3 more of the fuel value.

Transferring a gas under very high pressure is always energy intensive, and probably cannot be done passively, like a liquid. When the storage tank is half empty, the receiving tank would only get half full, without compression. This means that tank exchange may be the only practical refueling method.

Metal-hydride storage might be an alternative to high pressure. Certain metals in specific forms - in general, finely powdered, then sintered into porous blocks with enormous surface area - can store hydrogen (chemically, also a metal) on the surface, and the density of hydrogen can exceed its gaseous density.

Chemical storage might be a better choice. A catalytic device called a reformer can extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons, anything from methane to gasoline fractions, using (or wasting) the energy from the carbon content for the extraction process. Another comparatively efficient chemical that stores copious amounts of hydrogen is sodium borohydride (NaBH4) in a water solution. It is stable, NOT flammable, and relatively non-toxic and non-corrosive - less hazardous than gasoline. The residue, sodium borate, is recyclable. Expensive, right now, but the price could come down with volume production.

But anything other than natural petroleum is only an energy VECTOR, or SECONDARY source, a way to transport energy instead of a primary source, with its energy content already present when obtained. The only primary energy sources capable of supplying the amount required, continuously and reliably, are nuclear. Fission today, and perhaps fusion someday, when hydrogen will really become a primary fuel. I picture large nuclear facilities that not only produce electricity but desalinize water, produce hydrogen (in whatever form becomes the standard,) and distribute hot water locally for space heating. Maybe it can take out the garbage, as well.

Increases in the price of oil just make these alternatives more economical, and ECONOMICS IS THE KEY. Higher prices drive exploration and development for oil, as well as new petroleum sources like tar sands. Higher prices also drive the use of the substitutes and alternatives described above.

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At $40 / barrel, the 15 billion barrels in ANWR are now worth $600 BILLION DOLLARS.