Bush offers better plan to use national sources (take that Mr. Kennedy)

Miami Herald ^ | October 30, 2004 | H. STERLING BURNETT

[Former Military Chick]

Neither candidate has an energy plan to lead America to energy independence. Energy independence is a myth. Like everything else in this age of globalization, energy is bought and sold on the world market, and that is not going to change. Moreover, during the next 20 years, U.S. oil consumption could grow by one-third, and electricity demand could increase by more than 45 percent.

Having said this, the energy plan that President Bush put forward early in his administration does more to secure supplies of affordable energy than candidate Kerry's recently announced plan.

The Bush administration laid out 105 recommendations, 42 of which encouraged conservation and environmental protection, while 35 dealt with diversifying the U.S. energy supply and modernizing our antiquated electric and natural-gas delivery systems. The plan was not perfect, but it was comprehensive and the proposals did not contradict one another.

My colleague Bruce Bartlett's comments on Kerry's economic plan apply to his energy plan as well: Kerry's policies ``don't hang together in any logical way that could even loosely be called a plan. Viewed in isolation, any one of them might be defensible. But when you put them together, they often contradict each other. Having a plan implies that some thought went into creating a coherent set of policies that are linked together.''

For instance, like Bush, Kerry wants to expand nuclear-energy use. Unlike the president, he would not allow nuclear waste to be stored at the federal facility at Yucca Mountain Nevada. This may please Nevada voters, but it flies in the face of the science that says that Yucca Mountain is the safest place -- in terms of national security, human health and environmental protection -- to store the nation's nuclear waste stockpile. This stance virtually precludes the building of new nuclear-power plants because banks won't fund new plants without a safe option for storing nuclear waste.

When he's talking to coal miners, Kerry says that he supports coal and wants to build clean coal power plants. When not addressing coal miners, he calls for reducing domestic carbon-dioxide emissions to prevent global warming. Even clean coal plants will release carbon dioxide -- it's an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal. Thus, his preferred method of slowing global warming conflicts with his goal of keeping coal a vital component of America's future energy supply.

In an effort to reduce U.S. dependence on supplies of Middle Eastern oil, Bush has been actively filling the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and has promoted opening a small area in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production.

The Energy Information Agency estimates that ANWR contains between six billion and 16 billion barrels of oil. By comparison, the United States imports seven million barrels of oil per day. If only six billion barrels of oil were recovered in ANWR, in a time of emergency, the United States could cut all oil imports from the Middle East for decades.

By contrast, Kerry has voted against opening ANWR, claiming that there is not enough fuel in ANWR to lower energy prices significantly. But he has called on the president to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

This would free up only 120,000 barrels of oil a day, about 14 percent of the amount of oil that ANWR would provide at peak production. Thus, Kerry's plan makes the United States more, not less, dependent on foreign oil.

While Bush's energy plan hasn't gotten everything right, Kerry's plan has gotten almost everything wrong.

H. Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

[Former Military Chick]

Yet another excellent article that should have online weeks ago. jeez

[atomicpossum]

Yeah, where was this article last month?

[Lunatic Fringe]

The Energy Information Agency estimates that ANWR contains between six billion and 16 billion barrels of oil. By comparison, the United States imports seven million barrels of oil per day. If only six billion barrels of oil were recovered in ANWR, in a time of emergency, the United States could cut all oil imports from the Middle East for decades.

Fuzzy math.

If ANWR provides 6 billion barrels total, then cutting off 7 million per day in imports gives us about 2 years and 4 months. On the higher end of the scale, 16 billion barrels would enable us to cut off imports for just over 6 years.

Not that oppose ANWR drilling. But at least use better facts.

[hflynn]

It's not fuzzy math. The article said cut not eliminate.

[hflynn]

Whoops speed reading misses the word all 93% of the time

[hflynn]

Okay it's not fuzzy math. Did a little research. Major Sources of U.S. Petroleum Imports, 2001* (all volumes in million barrels per day) shows that the United States imports During 2001 were, about 48 percent of U.S. crude oil imports came from the Western Hemisphere (19 percent from South America, 15 percent from Mexico, and 14 percent from Canada), while 30 percent came from the Persian Gulf region (18 percent from Saudi Arabia, 9 percent from Iraq, and 3 percent from Kuwait).

Of course none of this will happen if Kerry is elected. Basically lets assume 2.1 million barrels a day come from the Middle East. We are talking approximately 730 million barrels a year from ANWR to replace Middle East oil totally. It could definitely mean decades. The price pressure on all Middle East oil would break the OPEC Cartel. The Arabs would be swimming in Oil with no US market.