My friend and sometime Energy Party think-tanker Samuel Tenenbaum sees justification for a true, enforced, 55-mph speed limit in many things — including this latest outrage from Saudi Arabia: The Jerusalem Post reports that our good friends over at the house of Saud are threatening to confiscate Christian and Jewish tourists’ Bibles.
Quoth Samuel:
Now why are we sending hundred of millions of dollars to them when they have no respect for any of us? Time for 55mph and deny them petrodollars to teach hate, fund terrorists, and deny all of humanity our equality! Wake up !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s stop all the other bromides that much of our establishment is putting out about the war on terror and energy conservation !We are funding our own executioners. Lenin said we would sell the rope that they would hang us with. He is right but he was with the wrong crowd ! Do we have any organization that will stand up? Do we have any leaders out there? Are they so afraid of their own shadow? I am one disgusted human being!
Samuel Tenenbaum
He gets like that, and it’s one of the things I like about the guy.
Related Posts
I drive 5 mph below the highway speed limit with a great savings in gas mileage every day. I enjoy jackasses in SUVs honking their horn at me while talking to some other clown on their cell phone as they pass me. I get flipped off by elderly men and young punks alike, and I enjoy the irony of some guy with support the troops stickers all over his car as he wastes gas going 80 on I26 towards the destination that so eagerly awaits him.
If we all went back to 55/60 mph, we would save gas and lose many less lives on the road in accidents. However, this will never happen as Americans are the laziest and most egotistical people in the world, as Dick Cheney so succinctly stated when he said that conservation is a virtue but not an energy policy, and that we have a standard of living that we must not sacrifice.
We could also put the thermostat on 78 in the summer and buy energy saving bulbs, but the mindset of this nation and South Carolinians in general is that is would be better to drill in ANWAR and preserve our standard of living that suffer a little bit for the greater good.
I’ll be the guy in the right lane in the white Ford Ranger going up I26 10 mph slower than you. Feel free to flip me off.
We went thru this back in the 70’s with the ‘gas shortage’ that was nothing more than the middle east thinking they could jack up prices a lot more than they could without upsetting anyone. I also think that the oil companies contributed to the rip-off, but that may be paranoia. At any rate, we should have learned at the time that “they” had control over the oil. But did we? Maybe for 5 years or so. Once prices went down, we got SUV’s. They’re “safer.” No one points out that they’re “safer” only in the sense that an 18 wheeler is ‘safer’ than a Celica because it’s larger, and in a world where force= mass x acceleration, if acceleration is an equal, then the greater mass wins every time. Meanwhile, the middle-east still controls the oil, and we have done nothing to find a way around that. Indeed, we have given them strength.
Yeah, that’ll show ’em! Too bad every drop of oil that is saved will be bought up by China. The Saudis won’t even blink at the foolish symbolic gesture.
We waste more oil on traffic jams on Harbison and Two Notch Road than a 55 mph speed limit would ever save. Why don’t you call for a home building moratorium in Lexington and Richland Counties so the roads can catch up to the sprawl? And how about all those parents who sit in their cars with AC running waiting for their kids to get out of school? Why don’t we force kids to ride a bus (that we already pay for)? Because we don’t want to.
If you you think George Bush is going to do anything that would impact our oil industry or the Bush family friends in Saudi Arabia, you’re living in a dream world.
No, Doug, we’re not going to bother Saudi Arabia or any other oil rich nation these days by buying less. All we’re doing is not putting our money in their pockets. Let them use someone else’s money to attack us. And, if we do sacrifice just a touch, maybe we’ll work harder at becoming less dependent on their oil, because that’s where the real crunch comes. Currently this country can’t function without their oil. Not our businesses, not our army, not our civilians. Does this sound like a good thing to you? If not, what say each of us tries to ‘get around’ using oil, just a little bit. If the way you do it is to drive 55, go for it. If you set your thermostat a little higher during the summer and lower during the winter, great! But do something.
I’ll start when George Bush and Dick Cheney come out and say we need to specifically cut our dependence on Saudi oil. I’ve been chastised many times that we need to obey our government leaders. That’s all I’m doing in this case.
Try typing “bush holding hands” in a Google image search and you’ll see plenty of pictures of our President walking hand in hand with Saudi leaders. That says it all.
Fifteen of the attackers in 9/11 were Saudis (no Iraqis in case anyone forgot). That we continue to buy even a single drop of oil from them shows just how silly symbolic gestures like driving 55 are. It’s like tying the yellow ribbon on a tree or sticking an “I support the troops” magnet on a car. It will take political leadership and sacrifice to end our energy dependence on foreign oil. Bush has had seven years to do something about it. He chooses not to.
We definitely need to do something. But the focus shouldn’t be to punish the OPEC countries. It is going to be evident to everyone very soon that OPEC no longer controls the price of oil. Production will no longer be able to meet demand even if OPEC pumps as fast as they can. The result will be prices rising faster than the temperature an August day in Columbia, SC. Long gas lines might have more of an effect than high prices. Perhaps we should bring back price controls (at least for producers) and the resulting gas lines that go with them. Now there was an effective way to cut gas consumption.
There is a not one person in Cola that can’t easily reduce his energy usage by 25%. But conservatives and liberals alike love to talk about it, but no one actually acts.
It takes SACRIFICE… (a giving up of something valuable or important for somebody or something else considered to be of more value or importance). That mean Brad does not by a truck that gets 17 mpg, but instead buy a car that gets 30 mpg…and borrows or rents a truck for the few times a year that he needs it.
It means that we all car pool to work…even if only 2 or 3 days a week. We go to the store only 1 time a week even if we run out of bread or beer or whatever. We turn OFF all unused appliances…especially those that are not used often. We set our AC on 76, and the heat on 67…of course I could go on and on…but even the most lefty of us don’t seem to do anything about energy usage. Sure, there is the notion of conversation…but in the end virtually nothing is done.
So our boys will go off to war for more battles involving energy. Our economy is hostage to outside interest. We waste resources given to us by our Lord. But we just keep talking and talking…and refusing to sacrifice.
We need the oil for our new draftees to report for duty – see comments by the “War Czar”.
We need the oil for our new draftees to report for duty – see comments by the “War Czar”.
In a free country, we don’t need commissars like Sam Tenenbaum and Brad Warthen to tell us how fast to drive.
What we need instead is for engineers to determine what can reasonably expected to be safe on modern, well-designed, and well-maintained roads.
Beyond that we should treat people like adults. Driving from Greenville to Hilton Head is no fun today as it is. At 55 mph, it would be a total beast.
For a trip like that, I bet that Tenenbaum would take a plane or a copter. No way someone that “important” would make that trip at 55mph.
And am I unfair to guess, Brad, that you drive over 55mph every once in a while? Let’s enact realistic laws. And let’s minimize the symbolic politics, muckraking, and jingoism of the above proposal.
Since we live in a free country, we don’t need commissars like Sam Tenenbaum to tell us how fast to drive.
What we need instead is for engineers to determine what can reasonably expected to be safe on modern, well-designed, and well-maintained roads.
Beyond that we should treat people like adults. Driving from Greenville to Hilton Head is no fun today as it is. At 55 mph, it would be a total beast.
For a trip like that, I bet that Tenenbaum would take a plane or a copter. No way someone that “important” would make that trip at 55mph.
And am I unfair to guess, Brad, that you drive over 55mph every once in a while? Let’s enact realistic laws. And let’s minimize the symbolic politics, muckraking, and jingoism of the above proposal.
Lots of us do things to reduce our carbon footprint. It doesn’t get published, and it’s not particularly encouraged by our government (city, county, state, or national). Oh, yeah, they talk the talk, but if they walked the walk they’d make it a lot easier (and cheaper). But no. Big business is encouraged to package and sell whatever to all of us (Anyone for tap water that costs more than gas?). Meanwhile it seems like each street has different things that are acceptable for recycling. The city takes flatboard; the county doesn’t. Some places take colored glass; others don’t. Can’t we get something going here and share recycling sites so that we can all recycle as much as possible?
To the ticked off driver:I do not have a helicopter nor plane. I drive a Chevrolet HHR which gives me 25 mpg in the city and 32 mpg on the highway. Persoal attcks reveal your lack of commitment to our country and the weakness of your argument. You cannot scrifice speed to save lives and keep America strong? Shame !
Samuel
Europe has vastly more efficient vehicles and in some cases like the German Autobahn, NO speed limit.
Germany is the home of some superb, efficient diesel cars.
Instead of techno-ignorant time wasters like cutting the speed limit, change the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards to push efficient vehicles in a way that does not dictate what tech they use.
Americans can certainly do good diesels, but they stay in 18-wheelers because there is no encouragement to put them in anything else except overpriced diesel pickup trucks. By the way, those diesel duallys routinely get around 20 mpg! Smaller engines in smaller vehicles can do much better. Think VW TDI.
Europe has vastly more efficient vehicles and in some cases like the German Autobahn, NO speed limit.
Germany is the home of some superb, efficient diesel cars.
Instead of techno-ignorant time wasters like cutting the speed limit, change the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards to push efficient vehicles in a way that does not dictate what tech they use.
Americans can certainly do good diesels, but they stay in 18-wheelers because there is no encouragement to put them in anything else except overpriced diesel pickup trucks. By the way, those diesel duallys routinely get around 20 mpg! Smaller engines in smaller vehicles can do much better. Think VW TDI.
Why can’t we do both, at least until we get a handle on global warming. We’re committing suicide folks! Do we really want to make the planet unlivable? We need to support and encourage alternative energy, recycling, and just plain, self- restraint. For those selfish ones who will not/cannot see beyond their own preferences/desires, we need major incentives/disincentives to encourage them to make good choices.
Here’s the bud energy plan:
1. Provide incentives tha will encourage people to use less electricity, especially during peak times. Does it make any sense to dry clothes in a dryer when it’s 107 degrees outside? Perhaps we could suspend these ridiculous neighborhood restrictions on clothes lines.
2. Tax gasoline more to encourage alternatives.
3. Provide subsidies for wind power. A small boost could go a long way.
4. Bring back the tax incentive for hybrid cars. Make it a big one.
5. Subsidize the development of natural gas powered buses, electric trains and other cost efficient modes of transportation.
6. Build nuclear power plants.
7. Promote the development of electric cars.
Many other ideas are available but the bottom line is simple. The production of oil on a world-wide basis cannot be increased much if any over current levels. This is true regardless of whether we drill in the Anwar or off the Atlantic. This will require zero or even negative demand growth for oil. Electricity is the most versatile alternative to oil and can be generated using non-fossil fuels.
We’ve got a lot of work to do re foreign policy, Bud. Have you ever been in the smog in an Indian city like Delhi? I’m afraid we’ve exported our affluence around the world, and everybody wants a piece of it. I don’t see negative demand growth for oil happening right now. That doesn’t mean we don’t do what we can, but the tendency is up, up, up, on oil use.
Here’s a nice letter discussing some of the “peak oil” issues:
Dear Duncan,
I suppose advocates of peak oil should be flattered that they are now taken seriously enough for someone to launch such a laboriously researched attack as The Battle for Barrels: Peak Oil Myths & World Oil Futures. The idea that global oil production will soon ‘peak’ and go into terminal decline, with potentially catastrophic results for the world’s economy, has struggled to gain significant traction in the mainstream policy debate, but you are clearly alarmed at its progress. If we are to believe your book, what you characterise as the peak oil “movement” is evidently doing something right.
Peak oil forecasters should welcome the attention, and not simply because it publicises their work; you have correctly identified some obvious weaknesses. Unfortunately your analysis is undermined by factual errors, out-of-date or partial reporting of oil depletion models, a failure to examine the planks in your own eyes and – in contrast to your self-professed industry expertise – an extraordinary blindness to the significance of key events in the real oil world. All of which prevents you from tackling the bigger question raised by your critique, which is how much difference does this all make to the peak oil argument? And the answer, after all the huffing and puffing, is surprisingly little.
Although you start by claiming yours is genuine attempt to present the arguments fairly, you quickly dispense with the niceties, and for the first third of your book you ignore the real issues altogether. Instead, under the pretext of analysing peak oil’s “social model”, whatever that might be, you spend almost 60 pages deriding it as a delusional cult whose advocates are compared to “millenarians making their survival plans; occult groups searching for final redemption; even alien encounter schools promising lift-off to distant planets for the chosen and the faithful”. As a concept peak oil is obviously swivel-eyed and writes in green ink, you insinuate, because of the kind of people who attend its conferences.
On the fringes there may be some peak oil campaigners who evoke such caricature, but you smear a widely divergent group of people and approaches with the same tarry brush. And if you attack peak oil by the company it keeps, I am entitled to defend it on the same terms. So lets list some of its supporters that you forgot to mention: Bill Clinton, George Soros, William Rees-Mogg, former UK ambassador to Washington Sir David Manning, and Britain’s chief scientific advisor Sir David King, who told me in 2005 that the global peak would arrive “in ten years or less”. Worse, you also fail to acknowledge any of the senior oilmen who support the analysis: Richard Hardman, former head of exploration and production at Amerada Hess; former Shell chairman Lord Oxburgh; and Thierry Desmarest, the current chairman of Total, who last year declared the global peak would arrive “around 2020” and urged governments to find ways to depress oil demand growth to delay the event. None of these endorsements ‘proves’ peak oil is correct, of course, but it does make it rather harder to dismiss the idea as self-evidently deranged. Perhaps that’s why you left them out.
When at last you turn to the substantive issues, some of your arguments are well taken. It is perfectly true that a number of predictions of the global peak have come and gone without the sky falling in; that some peak oil forecasters have adopted apparently overly-conservative estimates of ‘ultimately recoverable resources’, the total oil that will ever be produced from the crust of the earth; and that one reason for both these failings may be a reluctance by some to acknowledge the role of ‘reserves growth’, the observed tendency for oil fields to yield more than originally expected, through some combination of technological advance and conservative initial estimates. I can agree with all of that in principle, but the world has moved on. The critique seems damning at first, but only because you ignore or misreport a slew of depletion models from forecasters such as Jean Laherrere, Energyfiles, Richard Miller at BP, and PFC Energy, which have already addressed these and other issues that you raise, and still produce a peak before or around 2020.
In any event, picking away at the forecasting record does nothing to disprove the concept of peak oil itself: the idea that global oil production will peak and decline at about the midpoint of depletion, which is to say when at least half the oil that will ever be produced is still underground. This pattern has been demonstrated repeatedly the world over; PFC Energy’s analysis shows that countries peak on average when they have produced 54% of the oil discovered so far. But by fixating on past forecasts you manage to avoid confronting the elephant in the room: the obvious facts that suggest the peak is close, with or without the help of any depletion model.
There are 98 oil producing countries in the world. Around 60 appear to be in terminal decline already – including once mighty producers such as the United States, Mexico, Norway, Indonesia and the UK, where North Sea production peaked in 1999 and has already fallen by well over 40%. Aggregate oil production in the OECD peaked in 1997 and has been in decline ever since. It is almost unanimously agreed that oil production in the entire world except for OPEC will peak soon after 2010. This view is held not only by ‘peak oil’ forecasters, but also major oil industry consultancies such PFC Energy, and even by notable opponents of the idea of an early global peak: the International Energy Agency, Shell and ExxonMobil – whose CEO Rex Tillerson told me recently that non-OPEC would be all over in “two to three years”. From early in the next decade, by common consent, the only thing standing between us and the conventional oil peak is the OPEC cartel.
This matters because there are severe and well-justified doubts about the true size of OPEC’s reserves, buttressed last year by the leak of internal documents from the Kuwait Oil Company. The documents revealed that although Kuwait has for two decades been telling the world it has about 100 billion barrels of proved reserves, the KOC’s internal assessment in 2002 was just 24 billion, confirming the widely held suspicion that the reserves of many OPEC countries were falsely inflated in the early 1980s when members were vying for larger shares in the new quota system, and they have been stuck with the falsehood ever since. Yet you dismiss this evidence out of hand as “peak oil mythology” solely on the basis that it “was rejected by the oil minister”. Such credulity is laughable, and not widely shared in the oil industry. No senior oilman I have spoken to privately believes OPEC’s claimed numbers. Even the oilfield database run by your former employers IHS Energy discounts the reserves of the big-5 Middle East members by 100 billion barrels. In 2005 PFC Energy briefed Dick Cheney that on a more conservative reading of OPEC’s reserves, its production could peak in 2015. So, this is apparently not an obviously absurd view. When OPEC peaks, so must the entire world.
In this context your other arguments pale into insignificance or are simply wrong. You persistently mistake oil company exploration activity for evidence that lots of oil will be discovered. You claim that the bigger estimates of the global oil resource produced by United States Geological Survey and others somehow trounce peak oil – without apparently realising they are perfectly compatible with a peak before 2020. You somehow regard current geopolitical difficulties as positive for future oil production without ever being specific (when exactly do you expect peace to break out in Iraq, the Russian authorities make nice with international oil companies, and the Nigerians to stop attacking production platforms and kidnapping foreign oil workers?) And you insist without evidence that a rising oil price will transform the supply picture. But at no point do you quantify how much difference any of this might make to the date of the inevitable peak – but then peak oil deniers never do.
Yours sincerely,
David Strahan
News happening now…Saudis may skip Mideast peace conference
Stories this blog was used in… Saudis may skip Mideast peace conference
This post is dated but I would still like to comment. We tried this policy from 1974 to 1987 – after which Congress decided to let states raise their rural interstate speed limits to 65 (federal controls were eliminated entirely in 1995). Numerous studies have shown that the “double nickel” did little to curb oil comsumption or benefit interstate highway safety. This policy also has the effect of moving traffic off of safer interstate highways and on to back roads. For example, on an occasional trip between Bamberg and Charleston, I use US 78 to pick up I-95 in St. George. From there I head north to get on I-26 east to Charleston. This route is longer than staying on 78, but at 70mph it offers a speed and safety advantage. If the speed limit on the interstate were 55, I would lose that advantage and stick to US 78, a narrow two lane road – and I would probably not be alone. Mr. Tenenbaum is justified in his frustration about our dependance on imported oil – I am as well. But I believe there are more effective policies we could implement than an arbitrarily set speed limit. A good start would be to expand congested highway arteries and build more commuter rail – unclogging bottlenecks on the interstates. Sometimes I stare longingly at the speed limit sign on I-26 in Charleston and WISH I could go that fast!