Reader C. wishes I'd dial back on the peak oil stuff, but he can't resist sending along this WaPo piece quoting a speech Dick Cheney delivered this week to the US Chamber of Commerce about oil and
America's future. Money quote from the former Halliburton-in-Chief:
"We have to recognize that there isn't anything out there that is going to get us away from a hydrocarbon economy anytime in the near future," the vice president announced. "There really isn't anything on the horizon that today is economic, relative, for example, to basic, good old oil and gas."Let the Obama supporters drive their Priuses. "The solution for us in the near term -- near term being over the next few years -- is to increase production," Cheney said. "For far too long, too many politicians have advocated all kinds of other courses of action without facing up to the basic fundamental fact that today we have a hydrocarbon economy, and if you're going to have cheap, affordable energy available in the amounts it needs to be to run our economy, you're going to have to produce more of it."
In his e-mail to me, C. writes:
[T]here might be a point in what Cheney is saying. He seems to be recognizing a reality -- that we are this sort of economy. [That's true -- RD.] But shouldn't the right response be manifold: 1) Pour money into R&D for new technologies such as this that you posted a while back; 2) Expand our oil sources to increase or at least decrease the rate of descent in oil reserves; 3) Reduce our lustful consumeristic passions, start building sane communities, stop buying crap all the time, go the Crunchy Con route.But we don't hear that from the VP. At least not from the quoted parts (the full thing is here). His words about alternative fuels are pretty passive. And there is this: "With crude oil already over 130 dollars a barrel and gas at four dollars, everyone in elected office ought to explain what solutions they have in mind for bringing the cost down, or at least slowing the trend. And if they're honest about it, they'll end up talking about increasing supply."
What plans do he and others have to reduce our consumption of this oil? Never in his speech, from what I have read, does he say that we need to reduce consumption. Could one argue that this borders on moral blindness?
One could, if one wanted to be generous to the VP. What, exactly, is conservative about Cheney's attitude?
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Excellent post, Rod. Is it just coincidental or is it karmic that your Beliefnet website just happens to link to the upcoming Mike Myers film about the 1960s guru, His Holiness Guru Pitka, who comments on this very topic with one of his wisest of sayings: "First reduce the greed, then reduce the need."
For sure, man, just reduce the greed.
And then just simply come up with something non-hydocarbon-based to solve the energy crisis. That's all you have to do. Just dictate into your dictaphone like Michael Keaton did in "Night Watch" and say "Concept: Convert garbage into food" except this time make it "Convert garbage into limitless supply of energy."
Until then, at least may we all sniff at Dick Cheney for his benighted attempts to speak in"practical terms".
given that Cheney is talking about the "hydrocarbon economy"...
I can give about 3 trillion good reasons to drill drill drill...
it's like this...
say the continental shelf reserves are "only" 25 billion barrels...
multiplied by $120 dollars per barrel...
= $3 trillion...
so...
it's not just about having enough to heat houses and run cars...
there's a little bit of benefit to the American economy...
and...
there MIGHT be lots more than 25 bbl in reserves...
shouldn't the American oil companies find out?
ya think?
wealth faith hope love joy peace to all...
Forgive God...
First, I don't think the US OIL companies are losing money. It doesn't seem that the record profits of the oil companies are particularly benefiting the economy in general. If it was, then we'd notice that now.
Secondly, you are assuming that it is US companies that are petitioning for the rights. The chief contender is BP. That's a British petroleum company.
Third, that 25 bbl of oil (which IS an 'only', when you remember we use tens of millions of barrels a day. And the estimate is actually around half that) is the oil company estimate. If it is anything, its probably low, not high.
Last, it isn't their land. Corporations don't have the automatic right to go anywhere in our borders and do whatever they want there on the (I'll admit it to be one of the more honest arguments) basis that they could make money there.
I'm going to point something out, and people on either side are going to respond rather poorly, but I'm going to point it out.
ANWR will eventually be drilled, and it will have absolutely no effect on anything.
Oil is fungible. That oil isn't magically going to go 'to us', because when we start using less world-wide oil, the oil that would have gone to us will go elsewhere. If we pump enough, even the oil in ANWR will go elsewhere, for all intents and purposes. It's not going to give us oil for two years past other countries, like we can show up on the world market when we're done with ANWR and collect our last two years of oil we didn't use. Markets don't work like that. (Although if you're paying attention you'll notice that, relatively speaking, the more oil costs on the world market at that time, the better off we are.)
It's just going to slightly lower prices, like all developed oil reserves do. If we can pump it fast enough, we can cut back some and hold OPEC over a barrel and demand that they lower prices or we'll pump more. (1) This would be very nice, pricewise...
...but do absolutely nothing about the total supply of oil, which ANWR wouldn't make any noticable dent in. In fact, mixing in lower price oil and causing the average price to go down might result in more usage.
See, there are people in this discussion who pretend 'Oh, all those people who want alternative energy won't develop ANWR', like those have anything to do with each other. We need alternative energy because oil is finite, and, just as importantly, increasingly hard to get, and opening up a single field isn't going to do a damn thing to change that.
Worrying about ANWR is like demanding overtime in football...when your team is 400 points behind. Look, we're going to 'lose', oil will run out. ANWR may make us lose slightly later. That is not incredibly helpful to worry about, and it's bordering on f***ing criminal negligence to hold up development of alternate energy because of that inanity. ANWR. Is. Not. Important.
1) Which, if the administration actually cared about oil prices, would be what they were doing with the National Petroleum Reserve...creating a hoard of oil and threatening OPEC with it. However, they don't care about that at all.
"Convert garbage into limitless supply of energy."
1. With current & emerging tech, efficiencies of ~1,000 kWh/ton of waste are possible. This plant gets 707 kWh/ton:
eere.energy.gov/industry/bestpractices/printable_versions/case_study_waste_to_energy.html
...while this prototype gets 1,150 kWh/ton:
zerowasteottawa.com/?article=aboutproject&l=en
2. The US produces 251 million tons (*) of municipal solid waste (i.e., trash) annually, along with ~131 million tons (**) of waste biomass from forestry, and 140 million tons (***) from agriculture.
3. Assuming an electricity yield of 1,200 kWh/ton, the aforementioned quantities of waste could produce ~625 billion kWh/yr.
4. Total American electricity generation for 2006 was ~4 trillion kWh. For coal, nuclear, & natural gas, the amounts were 1987, 808, and 787 billion kWh, respectively (****).
I'm all for finding gold in waste, but we must be realistic about the probable benefits from doing so.
(*) See http://www.epa.gov/msw/facts.htm
(**) See pp. 8-17 of this report:
eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/final_billionton_vision_report2.pdf
(***) See p. 21, Figure 17 of the aforementioned report
(****) See Table 8.2a of the 2006 Annual Energy Review, available here:
eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0802a.html
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