Posted on 03/11/2008 9:18:57 PM PDT by neverdem
It is certain that the United States is in for an energy price and supply shock the likes of which we have never experienced or imagined. While high prices, to a reasonable extent can be tolerated, hell will break loose if massive supply disruptions emerge. We are much closer to them than people think. Those who think that we can conserve ourselves to energy independence need not read any further. They are vastly wrong and it is pointless to argue with them.
The first proof of trouble to come is that none of the three US presidential candidates, Senators John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have paid much attention to the fact that oil, gas and coal -- the sources that provide 87% of US energy – can, through better use of the latter two can be taken advantage of to help free us from the “tyranny of oil.” Their lack of interest is breathtaking considering that whoever gets elected will probably be confronted with $120 per barrel oil.
The candidates have mentioned energy occasionally but their preciously rare pronouncements contain only the trite mantras of conservation (something that has never played any major role in US total energy demand), the most unrealistic “alternatives” such as solar and wind and the negative-energy-balance biofuels. They have talked about technology and used allegories of sending a man to the moon, but no one showed how technology, admirable as it may be, can break the basic laws of thermodynamics: energy cannot be generated from nothing.
Second proof -- even more daunting -- is that all candidates have been Gored, accepting the most outlandish and easily discountable environmental gobbledygook and alarmism as facts and all have promised “solutions” to global climate change, carbon dioxide emissions reduction and the clearly whimsical carbon trading. The most radical and preposterous environmentalist ideologies of yesteryear have been mainstreamed, endowed with neckties and pantsuits.
Even if for the moment one accepts the most ridiculous environmentalist slogans, any substantial transition away from fossil fuels will take at least four to five decades. And this would only be in a “steady state” world, not one we live in which is characterized by the burgeoning energy demands of China, India and other developing countries.
The next four decades are good for a dozen recessions, if things were business as usual or a constant downturn if American politicos actually apply what they have been saying. especially what they seem not to worry about during this election season. I once had a secret hope that in a Hillary Clinton administration some pragmatism would be provided by her husband until he kicked sanity away by actually saying recently, “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions.” Really and really? Is this the guy of “it’s the economy stupid?”
The US -- the world’s reigning superpower -- has come under the control of a situation generated by energy militant countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Russia. Importing more than 60% of its oil consumption while the national debate is dominated by upper middle class ideologues who are fanatically averse to exploiting America’s own resources, we have become dangerously vulnerable to oil prices that cannot be rationalized by any economic model. Except of course the irrational geopolitical components fomented by countries that have the United States exactly where they want it to be. Those same countries also can cause the far more devastating to our economy supply disruptions.
Oil supply and demand is a margin business where 0.5% of over or under supply can generate havoc on the market. There is ample historical evidence that such small discrepancy has caused huge fluctuations in the oil price, perhaps 30% or more. Imagine if ANWAR were already on line, producing as much as 10% of US oil imports. It would have a huge impact on the price of oil, regulating and dampening foreign influences and, in my reckoning, causing at least a $25 reduction in the current oil price.
The blame for the US predicament surely must also fall on the current administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, to both friends and foes, were supposed to be an energy-oriented administration. They were the ones who could explain to the American people the importance that energy plays on our economy and our life style. Instead, mired in Iraq and other misadventures, they failed in exactly the area they were supposed to shine. Instead they allowed themselves to be painted as stooges of big oil. I only wish that big oil had the sway it is accused of. The truth is that they have been rendered largely impotent, shut out of reserves by militant nations and non-supported by a weak government that has lost focus.
The most visible act was a Frankenstein of an “energy bill” that showcased biofuels, including the mandating of non-existent cellulosic ethanol. As of late, biofuels received the notice they deserve, most likely to be relegated to the trash heap of similar experiments.
The energy industry and the energy world are inundated with alarmisms such as peak oil and global warming, things that are in many ways philosophical, perhaps even proxies for religion. The real alarm should be whether in the very near future we can have our lights on and our transportation in place. Every indication shows that our next president will prove to be the Chauncey Gardener of energy.
Mr. Economides is editor-in-chief of the Energy Tribune.
Cellulosic ethanol is here. S. degradens does the trick according to the link. General Motors is serious about cellulosic ethanol according to a link on that thread. Cellulosic ethanol is part of energy independence, along with new sources of all types of energy. Once there's plenty of ethanol, it can be used as a feedstock. "Ethyl alcohol is not only the oldest synthetic organic compound used by man, but it is also one of the most important." (Organic Chemistry, Morrison and Boyd, 3rd Ed., P. 499)
We need a national strategy of energy independence and to hell with global warming B.S. Better yet, would be to flood the world with the technology for energy from cellulosic ethanol and hamstring the oil and gasoline exporters.
And of course new cars........who sells those cars again ? GM ?........Stay Safe ~!~:o)
With plenty of ethanol, you can synthesize just about any fuel you want.
Jeez!
well if you move the global market away from oil, the global warming people will be happy but a lot of conservatives will be happy that rest of the world won’t be kissing the hand of the saudis, Iran, Putin and chavez.
You and the rest of the biofuel backers have the cart before the horse. If ethanol (corn or cellulosic) is the substitute that you claim, let’s wait until it becomes commercially viable. These ethanol mandates are madness. We have a no-energy energy policy. Let the market find the appropriate energy portfolio.
CO2 output must cease altogether, studies warn (sky is falling alert)
The Epicycles of Global Warming
The author of the last link also wrote Recycling Is Garbage
If you haven't read it, it's a hoot!
I agree with you unequivocally and completely. It is ridiculous and just gets worse from there. We have single states that have more energy potential in coal than Saudi Arabia has in oil. Knowing that, Government subsidized ethanol is the best we could come up with in the last 30 years?
Ethanol has done exactly what I said it would and that is to be the tip of the spear in creating inflation that will have the Dems squawking about “people hurting” in the general election.
In many places, like UNC, Fischer-Tropsch has been improved on and they are actually capable of producing a fuel that burns cleaner than gasoline. So what are we waiting for exactly? Four dollar/gal. gasoline, another war in the ME, what? Let OPEC, the Enviro-whackos and the speculators on Wall St. go pound sand. We need to be do something new, different and effective that releases us from having to worry about energy shortages and price increases, every time some jackass in the ME brays.
The entire . . .
toilet bowl full of 16 or so Presidential candidates
this time
were ALL CLUELESS ABOUT
—FREEDOM
—CAPITALISM
—OUR FOUNDING VALUES
—STATES RIGHTS
—GUN RIGHTS
—GLOBALISM AND TYRANNY
—LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE TRUE AMERICAN WAY
—MODERN SLAVERY
—
. . .
Sigh.
Thanks for the ping!
“You and the rest of the biofuel backers have the cart before the horse. If ethanol (corn or cellulosic) is the substitute that you claim, let’s wait until it becomes commercially viable. These ethanol mandates are madness. We have a no-energy energy policy. Let the market find the appropriate energy portfolio.”
Damn right BUMP!
Dump the subsidies for corn derived ethanol. There are plenty of other laws I would like to repeal. Check the thread of the first link in comment# 1 on this thread.
Then check this link: Biofuels on a Big Scale
Yuck, yuck....President Bush figured it out just last week when he said we’ve got to get rid of our oil addiction. Yuck, yuck....
Maybe when the enter office. Any bets on the price when they leave office in 4 or 8 years?
Presidential Candidates and most high office politicians are clueless about what it really takes to be an average working class, law abiding, tax paying citizen (the little people). They would consider themselves to be abject failures if they were us. Such is the mindset of our pampered princes and or princesses.
“that weaning the United States off foreign oil must become a national purpose, that doing it within 10 to 15 years would be a centerpiece of a Giuliani presidency. The federal government must treat energy independence as a matter of national security,” he said, comparing it to the effort in the 1950’s and ’60’s to put men on the moon”
Sen. John McCain has declared, “We need energy independence”
He promised to make the U.S. oil independent within five years.The Senator says he’ll make it happen quickly, with a program like the Manhattan Project. That was the big push the U.S. made to build an atomic bomb before Germany could get one.
Notice the reference to the Manhattan project and the Moon Shot.
Mitt Romney put up a dollar number for increasing increasing energy R&D. Romney
advocates increasing federal investments in energy, materials science, automotive technology and fuel technology from $4 billion a year — its current level — to $20 billion a year.
Why the the reference to war time projects like the moon shot and the manhattan project? And why have the time frames been shortened to 5-10 years? Its not just environmental or national security concerns. Now even big oil is buying into the peak oil argument. Shell Oil CEO Jeroen van der Veer this week wrote “Shell estimates that after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand.” That means that unless crash programs are enacted to bring down demand for oil–especially in the USA–oil prices are going to the moon. One way or the other a radical rewrite of the energy picture is coming.
Because most of their so-called 'advisors or consultants' are liberal idiots who are mostly out of touch with reality.
Presidential Candidates and most high office politicians are clueless about what it really takes to be an average working class, law abiding, tax paying citizen (the little people). They would consider themselves to be abject failures if they were us. Such is the mindset of our pampered princes and or princesses.
= = =
INDEED.
We are pond scum to them.
Or, as some of the globalist documents describe:
“useless eaters”
though . . . they mean, by that, particularly the aged, disabled, mentally weak . . . developentally challenged . . . diseased . . . criminals [ignoring that they are chief amongst the criminals] . . . welfare cases . . . etc.
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