Only this morning did I remember something I meant to call to your attention Sunday: Charles Krauthammer’s column espousing the central tenet of the Energy Party, which is: When it comes to Energy, Do Everything.
An excerpt:
But forget the math. Why is this issue either/or? Who’s against properly inflated tires? Let’s start a national campaign, Cuban-style, with giant venceremos posters lining the highways. (“Inflate your tires. Victory or death!”) Why must there be a choice between encouraging conservation and increasing supply? The logical answer is obvious: Do both.
Do everything. Wind and solar. A tire gauge in every mailbox. Hell, a team of oxen for every family (to pull their gasoline-drained SUVs). The consensus in the country, logically unassailable and politically unbeatable, is to do everything possible to both increase supply and reduce demand, because we have a problem that’s been killing our economy and threatening our national security. And no one measure is sufficient.
How is it that the major political parties are getting away with their usual ideological garbage on Energy in this election — the Democrats refusing to produce, the Republicans refusing to conserve. It is patently obvious to anyone possessed of common sense that — in this particular economic, political and global moment especially — our one hope is to Do It All?
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That reminds me that Leon Panetta, of the Clinton administration, was a member of Brigade Venceremos in the US, back in his radical youth. That is how he met Hillary Rodham, when they were both working on projects directed by the Communist Party USA.
How is it that the major political parties are getting away with their usual ideological garbage on Energy in this election ….
-Brad
Just because you label something “ideological garbage” that doesn’t make it so. What’s wrong with taking a position that stresses conservation and alternative energy proposals (the Democrats) over a policy of drill, drill, drill. The Democrats suggest that drilling will not alter the fundemantal world supply situation and that it’s time to move in a new direction that will reduce help keep the environment clean. Apparently the Brad energy party doesn’t give a damn about the environment. The Dem proposals sound like pragmatism to me, not garbage.
And frankly the Krauthamer article was extremely misleading. He suggests there is enough oil in the western shale deposits to offset 1,000+ years of improved tire inflation. He simply ignores the fact that we can’t possibly extract enough to make any real difference given the current state of technology and that even if we could the NET increase in oil supply would be miniscule.
It’s high time we stopped putting any emphasis whatsoever on drilling. It’s a false hope.
Brad,
Perhaps you should ask yourself why you continue to endorse candidates who participate in the idealogical garbage?
Tell the McCain campaign that you will offer no endorsement if he continues the typical partisanship tactics it has used since McCain was nominated.
You have a role in the process. Saying “We gotta endorse SOMEBODY” means you are basically approving of the methods.
Take a stand against partisan politics if you truly mean what you say. It’s that simple.
I keep reading about how horrible Democrats are because we want to focus on renewable energy. All your readers seem to see oil as the only energy source available to us, and they simply say drill, drill, drill. There must be some serious and logical thinking done here, because oil will not always be available. It is better to continue to keep the price of oil high, so we’ll use less of it and preserve more of it, and work on renewable energy resources. One day, we’ll have no choice.
I wonder how much of it is that the moderate left doesn’t trust the right when it says they only want drilling as part of a transition to the alternatives we need to get to? (Kind of analogous to the abortion issue, I know that a lot of people on the moderate left don’t think partial birth abortions should be legal… but are convinced that all the laws the right tries to pass about it are secret ways to make all abortions illegal).
Similarly, I’m wondering how many people on the moderate right would agree with some democratic plans, but think that everything the dems say is code for bigger government and more taxes?
So, is it true that Paris has laid out the most succint statement on energy of any of the “candidates”?
I wonder how many of these problems would go away if the moderate right and moderate left could just vaguely trust each other (what if the left could trust the right to actually explore alternative energy while continuing to drill, or outlaw partial birth abortions without trying to backdoor in getting rid of it all; what if the right could trust the left not to always want bigger government or even higher taxes)
Kind of sad that the best energy thing I’ve heard in a “campaign add” is from Paris Hilton.
I see the Dittohead filter is still not working. Leon Panetta worked For GOP Senator Tom Kuchel before President Nixon appointed him head of the Office of Civil Rights. Unlike the pill popper, Newt and our VP, after earning his law degree he served two years in the US Army and is still married to the mother of his grown children. Sounds like a real Communist to me.
Sure, we can go ahead and drill. When we actually get some oil 10 or 15 years from now, what will the scenario be? Let me suggest a couple:
1) Because of the rapid increase in oil consumption in China and India, as well as in some 2nd and even 3rd world countries, the price of oil on the open market is incredible. The Chinese decide that they want our debt to them repaid in oil. And that leaves us how much oil? Or they simply outbid us for our own oil. What?? Our companies that paid so much and risked so much would sell only locally? Really, capitalism assumes free market trade. To restrict their market would be a denial of our system. I can hear the shouts of “Traitors!” now, from both sides.
2)Because of the rapid increase in oil consumption by China and India, as well as some second and even third world countries, global warming has accelerated at a deadly pace. People have finally realized that there is a connection, and that oil may not be worth their lives. China and India have poured money into developing new technologies, and now are willing to sell some of their green technologies to us–at a price. Meanwhile, our poor oil companies have risked all to develop new oil resources, only to find that the market for that oil has disappeared. They cry, whine, and threaten major lay-offs, and an ultimate recession. We, the taxpayers, must bail them out.
OK. It may not get as extreme as all that. But, the primary goal must be alternative, non polluting fuels. People too often pin their hopes on what they relied on in the past (such as oil) and refuse to change until the situation becomes untenable. Drill if we must, but counting on that oil, is only digging the hole we’re in deeper. Let’s not compete with the oil rich countries; instead, let’s find other ways to power our countries, and turn their “black gold” back into sludge.
The ideal is of course to do everything–if only to gain everyone’s support for our finally doing what is necessary to get off nonrenewable energy sources. But many of the other posted comments are correct in ascertaining that the crucial issue is one of trust. Right and Left are loathe to come together on anything (the last time they did was re: terrorism and many on the left and even the center have come to believe giving George Bush a blank check on Iraq was the (inevitable?) outcome.
We are going to need a different type of political climate to move us forward and this means a truly meaningful change at the top–and that in turn means Obama must be elected president. Only then might we see America move from point A to point B.
The simple human reaction to a perceived crisis is to try everything, but not every method of converting, processing, transmitting or conserving energy makes any sense, especially economic sense.
Many of the alternatives to coal, oil, gas, and nuclear which are favored by so-called “environmentalists” are not economically feasible because they consume so much energy to produce and install the equipment, which the market prices reflect. Solar water heating makes sense for some locales, but not others. Solar photovoltaics rarely makes any sense.
The talk about the moderate left and moderate right (may we call them both centerist?) coming together is just what I theorized after Bush won(?) 2004: The ultra right and ultra left will eventually split off and form their own parties, and with ultra right not liking McLame and the ultra left suspicious of Obama’s move to left-center, time seems right after this 08 election for the schisms to quake.
I see a 4 party system developing–not three, b/c mods in both R and D parties will be too sour to unite–with the right wing nutcases abandoning the party of Lincoln, and the left wing wackos running to Dennis away from father Clinton.
I think our government would be run much better with 4 parties at play. 3 against 1 is always a winner.
And I’d vote for the Dennis’s.
Nuclear.
All option should be explored, but reducing consumption and conservation are methods can have have a very immediate impact.
Why on earth should anyone expect that drilling for oil alone is the answer to our problems?
The promise of cellulosic ethanol, and even algae derived fuels can be shown to have a much greater yield and does not require the same applications of pesticides and fertilizers, which means a greatly reduced cost in labor. Such methods also do not consume the same amount of water, and can be grown on marginal land, meaning that it will not impact our food supply like corn. Even the method of cultivating barley has a much higher rate of return. Not only that, barley has traditionally been cultivated in fallow fields as part of crop rotation practices for centuries until the advent of industrialized agriculture.
Given that fossil fuels are a finite resource, claiming that these renewable sources are “too costly” to produce is a distortion of the facts, that is entirely based on the current practice of using corn.
I personally know a family that lives on just two photovoltaic solar panels just fine. No, they do not have every kitchen appliance in the world, nor a gigantic TV replete with a surround sound home theater system. I’m certain that improvements in battery technology is the key to improving the efficacy of solar. Both the dropping cost of photovoltaics, together with increased demand will greatly influence market forces to make these methods more cost effective in the very near future.
We can do everything and should stop some things, like the silly ethanol subsidies that have the unfortunate effect of killing the poor by raising overall food prices. If ethanol is a good idea, then why can’t the US remove the tariff on imported ethanol? The answer is simply and cynically that the main purpose of the ethanol subsidies is to transfer money from US consumers to US ethanol distillers via the nasty oil refiners that are required by law to use the high octane / low mileage additive in their gasoline.
Much of the increase in crude is driven by the futures market where folks want to lock in supply at some point down the road. With about 250M vehicles on the road in the US, and new car sales sinking to about 14M units per year, its going to take several decadesto be able to get along without oil even if electric cars make up 30% of the new cars sold, no?
So what are you willing to pay for a barrel of oil in 2012? Let’s make it quite personal: how much would you bid today to guarantee your gas price in 2012? If you average 25 mpg and drive 12K mile per year, would you commit today to pay $4 and change per gallon for enough gas to get you through 2012? That’s $2000, and many might sign a contract for that if they could find one. Others might look at today’s prices and go $5 and change per gallon for $2500. Do I hear $6? $10? That’s what the so-called speculators are doing, betting on the future price of oil in order to guarantee supply.
So it should be no surprise that when Bush cancelled the executive order prohibiting offshore drilling, world oil prices declined because one obstacle to increased supply was eliminated. Should Congress do the same, prices will fall further. The depth of the decline will be a function of how many restrictions the Democrats retain on exploration and extraction.
Full disclosure: I am a member of no political party but have recently decided not to vote for any Democrat until that party ends its policy of increasing conventional energy prices to the level of what it calls “alternative” energy.
That said, there’s oodles of oil off the left coast – Kaliforneeya — that could reach the market within a year or two. Take Santa Barbara and its oil seepage. The crap is seeping out all over, making a mess, and increased drilling could make the whole area a lot cleaner.
The Hammer is correct, we should do everything to increase our domestic energy supply. The funny thing is that Big Oil will spend its own money to do so. Why not give the oil companies the opportunity to compete against each other to meet our needs?
@John
Don’t you mean “nucular?”
I know plenty of republians that like conservation. And nothing is stopping every American from properly inflating their tires.
The point is that the government is keeping us from drilling. In this case to “do everything” the government actually has to “do something” unlike conservation which people can do on their own.
If the oil companies were competing against each other, we wouldn’t be paying in excess of $3.00 per gallon for gasoline. The purpose of these companies is to maximize profits, whether meeting our needs or not. Krauthammer wants to do it all because that’s what McCain and the oil companies are espousing. They want every avenue opened that will expand the demand for centralized energy sources (those the public can be charged for, and gouged when allowed). What they oppose is the main “source” that they cannot charge for which is conservation. They also will oppose any solar, wind, or other renewable that is produced at the home and cannot be metered or charged for. If the transition to cleaner energy is slow enough, and ignored conservation, they will be able to invest their considerable fortunes in cornering those markets, also (a la T. Boone). It really irritates me to hear from the Bush and McCain and Krauthammer crowd who came so late to energy crisis/global warming awareness that they should be qualified to drive the bandwagon. Check their records on these issues back six to eight years ago when this could have been headed off. They called Gore a kook – and now they want to dictate policy?
Here comes Mike again with his drill, drill, drill mantra. Fact is drilling is nothing but a mirage that distracts us from the real solutions. American oil production has been in decline for 38 years and will continue to decline regardless of how much we allow the oil companies to drill. This whole business of the Democrats blocking drilling is just plain absurd. Oil companies are drilling at an extrodinary rate right now. They’re drilling in the western plains of South Dakota. They’re drilling furiously in the Gulf of Mexico. They’re drilling in Alaska. Fact is they’re drilling so much they don’t have the resource to drill any more.
Offshore drilling is perhaps the worst charade of them all. The additional oil from the deep waters off both costs will never amount to much new supply. It’s just too expensive and difficult to extract. It requires huge amounts of energy on the front end to extract. The ANWR is a bit better but it will still take a Hurculean effort to get a bit of oil to market.
And what happens to American oil production if we do all this? It will dampen the decline a bit but American oil production will still be less in 2028 than it is today. No amount of drilling will change that geological certainty.
So what to do? Basically the same thing that we’ve done so far, nothing. Apparently the invisible hand is working to drive prices up to a level that has forced Americans to cut back. The Saudis have bumped production up a bit. It’s been painful and the future holds more pain. But this pain results in innovation. Wind is taking off as a source of electricity. Various solar options are making that a competitive source of energy. Nuclear seems to be making a comeback. Hybrid and electric cars are coming to market. And walking is becoming all the rage. Perhaps gridlock in Washington is a good thing.
So let the backward thinking folks on the right continue to plague us with all their phony hype about drilling. If we stay the course long enough they’ll shut up and let market forces take charge. But we should not give in to their drill, drill, drill mantra. It’s a false hope that only enriches a few. I say NO to offshore drilling.
Harry — Where are the facts to support your assertions, especially the one about Gore not being a kook? Hah, just needling on the last one.
Exxon has a small group of shareholders (Rockefellers) that wants to invest in alternatives, but at the last board meeting, they were told to pound tar sand. BP has been fooling around with alternatives and hasn’t been doing so well.
The reason is that the oil companies’ expertise is in geology, chemistry, distribution, and a bunch of other fields that don’t provide a foundation for most other alternatives. They dislike ethanol not for reasons of competition, but because the corrosive stuff requires additional investment for transportation and processing: it can’t be transported in existing pipelines or in the tankers now used for gas and diesel.
Oil company executives are confident that the days of petroleum’s dominance for fueling mobility still has quite a few decades to go, so that’s properly where they’re putting their money for their shareholders’ benefit. They compete daily for access to resources, bidding on leases, etc. Heck, a friend works at the Chevron facility in the middle of a stinking desert over in Kazakhstan; it competed against other oil companies for the right to invest billions in setting up the extraction facility.
If you have evidence to the contrary, I’d like to see it.
And they don’t get a vote on conservation, that’s something that folks do voluntarily that Big Oil has no impact on. It’s a personal virtue, no?
bud – US oil companies have the capital (thanks to their average profits) and capacity to drill more and would rather drill here than in Africa or Asia, and there’s plenty of areas with known reserves right here at home, we just need to remove the moratorium.
Heck, even the Washington Post editorial board is starting to understand most of that. Yup, there’s plenty offshore to drill.
I know you don’t like this fact, but we’re going to need oil to fuel our needs for quite a few more years.
As for prices, it’s pretty well known to economists, but not to Democrats, that the possibility higher production in the future will reduce prices today.
Conventional power is cheaper and more efficient.
All the non-conventional energy technologies are too expensive to be cost competitive, either because they consume so much energy and materials in manufacture, or are so inefficient in operation.
Examples:
* Wind turbines are made of carbon fiber and Kevlar, produced from petroleum.
* Solar panels are produced from glass, aluminum and copper, which require huge amounts of energy to smelt and form.
* Photovoltaics require precision and microelectronics grade purity in the manufacture, and often utilize very toxic chemicals, such as hydrogen bromide.
* All the batteries involve lead, cadmium, acids and other toxins.
* All of them require expensive shipping, with packaging, and long distance trucking.
Gas and oil are pure energy, shipped by pipeline.
High-voltage electricity from coal, hydro and nuclear power plants runs across wires, without very little human involvement.
Mike, yet again you ignore reality. There are only, at most, about 18 billion barrels of oil off limits to the oil companies. That 18 billion will require extrordinary effort to bring to market. That’s another way of saying that the NET oil that is available is far less than the oil we’ve historically brought to market from sources in Texas and Oklahoma. It’s just not the panacea that you make it out to be.
We’re up against a geological brick wall. U.S. Oil production, currently about 60% of what it was in 1970 will continue to drop. There’s no way around this problem. We simply must reduce consumption and turn to other sources. T. Boone Pickens is right on target with this. We can use the more plentiful supplies of natural gas for transportation fuel if we use wind and solar to generate electricity. That is a much better way to bridge our current situation to the future rather than more drilling. Heck we already have 525,000 oil wells in the U.S.
Then there’s the world peak oil problems to deal with. But I’ll save that for another day. Suffice it to say that the U.S. is part of the world and the world’s supply is what is relevant, not what’s in the U.S.
A very good congressional compromise would go something like this. The Dems would drop their opposition to drilling offshore and in the ANWR. In exchange the GOP would allow a tax on oil company profits, the same as other businesses already pay, that would be used to subsidize hybrid and electric cars along with upgrading the power grid to allow for the construction of wind turbines in the windy, sparsely populated areas of mid-America. Sounds like a Paris Hilton ad? Now why does she get it and congress doesn’t?
Frankly I don’t think the drilling part of this will do any good. But if it gets the ball rolling so be it.
Herbie,
The conversation is about ENERGY. By “Nuclear” I obviously don’t mean the way we power our automobiles. I am advocating the expanded use of nuclear energy as a reasonable alternative to the polluting, non-renewable method currently employed. Nuclear energy is clean and safe. As for oil, we need to build more refineries. We haven’t built one in about 30 years thanks to the regulatory bodies that govern such things. And this ethanol garbage is a good indication of what happens when you put Dems in charge of energy policy. What a disaster!
Some of these views are slanted. LOL.
I tell you, the energy expertise we have on this blog could easily power an Edsel for at least a part of its natural life.
Krauthammer writes a column suggesting the only logical solution and the only common-sense solution, one and the same, that we do everything we can to temper the oil crisis with our economy teetering in the balance.
But the Democrats argue with him, urging we pin our hopes on solutions that don’t exist in the here and now and may not EVER exist.
What certainly would work short-term — in fact, all that we know would work short term — is more refineries and more drilling, the threat of which would lower prices and the onset of which would keep them low, coupled with lowering demand by using smaller, more efficient vehicles.
It ain’t rocket science. What makes it so hard to see — that it’s so simple?
And this ethanol garbage is a good indication of what happens when you put Dems in charge of energy policy. What a disaster!
-John
The Dems haven’t had control of all phases of government since 1995. So how does that make them “in charge of energy policy”. What kind of Rush Limbaugh nonsense is that? Really John, make some factual arguments instead of just regurgitating talk radio spin.
What certainly would work short-term — in fact, all that we know would work short term.
pm
What do you consider short term? Fact is the ONLY thing that is really short term is conservation. That’s something that folks seem afraid to talk about. When Barack Obama mentions it all it brings is ridicule.
Here’s my last word on this. I think this says it all. From the Association of Peak Oil – USA:
“From the EIA 2007 Annual Energy Outlook [i](AEO) and the 2007 report[ii] issued by the National Petroleum Council (NPC) we learn that there may be about 60 billion barrels of undiscovered but “technically recoverable” oil resources in the lower 48 OCS. Only about 19 billion barrels of these oil resources are in moratoria areas (in the Atlantic, Pacific, Eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the shore of Alaska) precluded by law or public policy from leasing and development. The other 41 billion barrels of undiscovered oil resources, or almost 70% of the undiscovered OCS oil resources, are in areas that are open to leasing and development.”
Basically all this fuss about the Dems blocking oil companies from drilling is just a political ploy by the GOP. Thanks to the failure of the “liberal” media the truth is just not getting out.
Shell Oil says there is over 1 BILLION barrels of shale oil in the lower 48 which is feasible to extract.
Democrats have put 547,000,000 acres off limits to oil and gas exploration.
Plus, Clinton already blocked our mining of low-sulfur coal, driving up the price for imported coal from his big donors in Indonesia and Malaysia.
A lot of this fuel shortage smells like the manipulation by crooked Democrats, getting bribes to do so.
The EIA data is quite incomplete because Congress has prevented it from using technology more modern than that employed in the 1970s. Obama is the sole sponsor of legislation that would block geological research to locate offshore oil.
Obama introduced his “Oil SENSE Act” (S.115) in January 2007; the bill would prohibit expanded use of 3-D seismic techniques that locate and measure underwater oil deposits — even though those tools are in wide use where offshore drilling is allowed, such as the western Gulf of Mexico. But maybe you would rely on 1970s roadmaps for a trip instead of using MapQuest or GPS.
Oh, and offshore drilling is pretty clean, maybe even cleaner than Mother Nature.
Is there some way to make sure the oil companies drilling there are required to clean up any environmental damage (and have the insurance to cover it)?
If they are, then I’m all for it (and since its so clean and safe, they shouldn’t have any trouble finding a reasonably priced insurer with good reinsurance).
just saying – If you really think that laws and regulations are not enough, you could go the extra step and require that oil companies post a bond. (The big issue with posting a bond is the costs over the ten- or twenty-year lifespan of an extraction project. You could price potential bidders out of the market.)
But so far, laws and regulations, coupled with the need for the robber baron oil companies to maintain good PR, have done a pretty good job of limiting spills. For example, all deepwater projects off US shores have to have a shutoff at the wellhead. Do you remember reading about all the massive oil spills during Katrina? Didn’t happen, did they? The oil companies have a pretty good handle on the extraction. The big problem remains in transporting the stuff, especially over water.
I don’t think that we’ll have to worry too much about that. Now that the Speaker of the US House of Representatives has agreed to have a vote on drilling, you’ll find that the Dems’ drilling bill will be loaded with enough poison like a windfall profits tax or drawing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that nobody will want to vote for it and Repubs will end up getting all the blame.
If you think of energy and oil as a big game, you can see why it’s silly to draw on the SPR in an attempt to drive prices down. However much you decide to draw from it, oil producers can reduce their output as an offset. And they can do it for far longer than you can afford to keep pumping. The main point behind the SPR is that it’s strategic, a reserve to be drawn down in really shaky times, not a toy used to game the international oil market.
I completely agree on the SPR… I’m not sure who’s sillier, the market for reacting, or the politicians for hoping it will.
Energy is one of the sad legacies of the Bush administration. Here’s a nice article by Tom Friedman that shows how Denmark is now independent from Middle East oil. This is how we should be approaching the inevitable peak oil crisis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/opinion/10friedman1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
If you think of energy and oil as a big game, you can see why it’s silly to draw on the SPR in an attempt to drive prices down. However much you decide to draw from it, oil producers can reduce their output as an offset.
-Mike
Mike, we’re in complete agreement on this. The same exact logic applies to offshore and ANWR drilling. The Saudis will simply cut back in order to keep prices high. No one thinks we can increase oil production by more than 2 million barrels a day over what it would be if we allowed offshore and ANWR. (For the record I doubt it would amount to more than 1 million). Yet that 2 million barrels would simply allow the Saudis to conserve their supplies for the day when our expensive oil is gone. Gasoline prices at the pump would not be changed.
I haven’t made it through the entire above thread; I looked at the first few comments and quickly lost heart.
Go back to the top and see how few lines it took for this to devolve into just what I’m decrying, the madness of either/or…
Folks, what we have before us is not a choice between two methods of becoming energy independent, either one of which will get us there. AFTER we conserve all we can AND drill all we can, we will JUST BE GETTING STARTED on what must be done. It’s foolish, wasteful, destructive, unAmerican, anti-environment, pro-terrorist and just plain crazy to pretend that anything less will even get us started on having any kind of positive impact.
I’m with you Brad, this is very discouraging. All the other side can do is harp on this drilling business. Ok, fine let’s drill. I don’t think it will help (and I’ve offered plenty of support for that) but let’s get on with it.
But they absolutely have to acknowledge and support conservation on a massive scale, tax credits for hybrid cars (paid for by oil company profits) and expanding the electric grid to accomodate massive expansion of wind power. I think that’s pretty much the Democratic position right now.
Why do hybrid cars need tax credits?
Because they are not fuel efficient enough to be cost-effective.
Why pick on oil company profits, which are less than most other industries?
The Democratic position is to oppose conservation, alternative energy and oil exploration. Democrats have fought to block every one of Bush’s proposals for alternative energy since 2001, except for ethanol, which had Mrs. Tom Daschle as the lobbyist for ADM and other ethanol distillers.