BillHobbs.com - Blogging about politics and media from Nashville.

July 30, 2008

The Future Hinges on Domestic Oil

Former Rand Corp. analyst Stan Katten explains:

Liberal Democrats are not unhappy with the high price of fuel and energy or their effects on the economy. They insist conservation is the answer, along with alternatives such as biofuels, wind, solar and thermal power generation. They favor hybrid, electric and fuel-cell vehicles and still oppose clean coal and nuclear energy.

They oppose nuclear energy even though France generates 80 percent of its electricity using nuclear power and Japan and South Korea derive 40 percent of their power using nuclear. These nations plan to build more plants using standardized designs and have largely solved the nuclear waste problem, long used as the excuse by the opposition, by reprocessing spent fuel rods.

Democrats say high oil prices will encourage the development and use of alternative fuels and energy, and will help decrease the emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. They fail to mention that hybrid autos still need gasoline and most fail to deliver promised efficiencies. They ignore the increases in almost all food prices caused both by the increase in diesel costs and the diversion of a major portion of the corn crop to make ethanol, a process that uses 17 percent more energy than ethanol delivers.

They take no note that electric cars are said to cost between $40,000 to $60,000 or that their range will be limited to 40 to 120 miles and require six to eight hours to recharge. If they are opposed to oil, gas, coal and nuclear power generation, where do they suppose the electricity will come from for millions of electric vehicles?

They disregard that hydrogen fuel-cell autos will cost around $100,000, and that the only ready source of hydrogen is from refining oil. They also overlook the accident dangers of highly flammable hydrogen.

Wind and solar energy are great - when the wind blows and sun shines - even if their costs are nearly double those of power from fossil-fuel sources. Although available for 40 years, these alternative sources still only account for 3percent to 4percent of total electricity generated in the United States.

On a crash basis, in 10 to 15 years, American ingenuity will solve these problems and provide practical, affordable, unsubsidized alternative fuels, but oil will still be needed for all its uses well into the future. Additional low-polluting fossil fuel and nuclear power plants are needed, together with expanded existing and new refineries. This requires opening up oil lands wherever they may be to increase domestic supplies, reduce dependency on unstable and hostile foreign sources, keep more of the oil money and jobs at home, and strengthen national security.

That means the domestic oil development must be a major issue in the forthcoming national election.

Posted in Energy

Comments

Absolutely amazing that Republicans who've set energy policy for the past 8 yrs, ran congress for the last 12 of 14 yrs have the audacity to blame the Democrats for the energy situation in America. You reap what you sow. When Bush took office, gas was $1.50 a gallon, remember that.

Posted by: William at July 31, 2008 2:52 AM

According to Bureau of Transportation Statistics Table 4-2
The BTU consumption of transportation was 28.4 percent of total in 2006 and the BTU consumption of residential and commercial uses was 10.2 percent of total. Converting from petroleum to electrical energy will take about double the electrical capacity that the residential and commercial sector now consumes. This means a massive investment in generating capacity and distribution capacity. I don't mind trying to eating this elephant, but it makes the whole task much less tasty while trying to do it with the vegetarian eco-freaks blocking every advance. If they really want to start conserving energy, try getting rid of buses.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics Table 4-20.
The number of BTU's per passenger mile for automobiles has been consistently lower than for transit motor buses since 1991.

Posted by: Danny L. Newton at July 31, 2008 1:39 PM

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Yes, Bill,

It is, to some degree, unavoidable that oil and other fossil fuels will continue to be important sources of energy in the near future, with all their increasingly obvious human and environmental costs. We're in pretty deep.

Does it follow that we should continue to give tens of billions in incentives to an oil industry that saw profits of $123 billion last year? Does it follow that we should blithely expect the corporations not only to restrain their profiteering but to pioneer needed advances in alternative energy technologies while we pay them such great disincentives to do so?

There seems to be an absurd subtext here: that the oil companies are vulnerable; that they need to be protected from us powerful critics who would reduce their subsidies and divert those funds into getting America on track for sustainable development.

Some of Katten's assertions are true (e.g. that ethanol is no solution). Others are straw-man arguments (e.g. "Liberal Democrats are not unhappy with... the economy"). But many of his boldest assertions are simply misleading.

Katten claims that "electric cars are said to cost between $40,000 to $60,000," ignoring the $20K Triac, the $25K Th!nk City, the $30K Aptera, etc., and never mind the success of plenty of $40K to 60K "luxury" gas-guzzlers.

Of course the increasing numbers of 100 mpg plug-in hybrids will shift demand from the oil infrastructure to the grid. That's the point. Our grid is inherently more sustainable and more manageable than private gasoline-powered vehicles. Over 8% of the U.S. grid is already powered by hydroelectric, wind, solar and other renewables. Along with cleaner cars, we need to put more resources into sustainable electric infrastructure. Here again, more efficient lighting and building standards can partly offset the increased demand.

Katten claims that costs for wind and solar are nearly double the costs for fossil fuels. According to some studies (see DeCarolis, et al., Science 2001), even the direct costs of new wind facilities are already comparable to those of new coal or the mythic "clean" coal. The staggering indirect costs of coal--mountaintop removal, accelerated climate change, water pollution--make wind power a far wiser investment.

The dinosaur thinking of blast, drill, cut, dig, burn, and then dump the toxic waste in the rivers or bury it in the soil--it's no longer viable. It never was.

Even nuclear "repurposing" is a shell game that does nothing to prevent the dumping of toxic and nuclear waste into the oceans--off the coast of Ireland, for instance. Nuclear "recycling" may actually increase the risk of nuclear proliferation in politically volatile regions as nuclear wastes are shipped more frequently and divided into smaller and more easily stolen portions.

Good stewardship demands that we take decisive and continued action toward real sustainability.

Compassion for the world's most vulnerable people, the ones at greatest risk of increased suffering from anthropogenic climate destabilization, demands that America reclaim her place as world leaders in intelligent resource management.

Self-preservation and sound judgment demand that we seek enlightened solutions to present and future global energy needs.

Stan Katten mocks the idea that we should conserve energy and invest in bringing still more sustainable energy online. Katten would have you believe that the engineering challenges of new energy sources are too difficult for us, while we continue to struggle with the impact of fossil-fuels. Katten would like to convince you that sustainability is somehow partisan, leftist. Katten wants America to "open up oil lands, wherever they may be," betraying a philosophy that the land should be consumed, not stewarded.

Katten and his friends in the military-industrial complex would have you believe that we ought to increase our wasteful, unhealthful, polluting, politically destabilizing oil consumption, and--even more preposterous--that it will somehow make us healthy, clean, self-reliant and safe.

Follow the money.

After all, Iraqi oil is financing the reconstruction as promised, right? Give or take a trillion dollars....

Posted by: Mark A. Lackey, Baltimore at August 1, 2008 11:21 PM

The Gull Island field in Alaska alone has enough oil to supply N America for the next 50 years.

Posted by: John McCain Forum at August 2, 2008 3:23 AM

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There are these recurrent rumors about a vast secret oil field under Gull Island that will supply our oil needs for 50 years, or 100 years, or 200 years. Then what?

On the other hand, there are the diligently researched reports in peer reviewed journals indicating that certain patterns in human activity (livestock industry practices, oil and coal burning) are causing pollution and war, and probably leading to catastrophic climate change within the next few decades.

I find the latter sources more credible.

Posted by: Mark A. Lackey, Baltimore at August 4, 2008 9:37 PM