New West Energy Grok
Bush’s Unrealistic Energy Goals
By Richard Martin, 1-26-07
“For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists—who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, and raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy.”
That was George W. Bush, in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. Bush went on to say we must “continue to change the way America generates electric power,” mentioning greater use of clean-coal technology, solar and wind energy, and clean, safe nuclear power. He also brought up research into hydrogen fuel cells—a speech-killer if ever there were one—biodiesel and new ways of producing ethanol. All of these initiatives received more or less bipartisan applause, but the real show-stopper was Bush’s call to “reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years.”
He said very little about how to do that, other than setting a new “mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017.” There’s a logical fallacy here—instituting that requirement in 2017 would only reduce gas use starting in 2017, not “in the next 10 years”—but the more important fallacy is thinking it will work. On a BBC World Service radio report on the State of the Union speech the next morning, one commentator said the only way to reduce gas use in this country by one-fifth is “to forcibly remove Americans from their cars and take away their keys.” Unfortunately, he was probably right.
In other energy news:
-- The President’s mention of new ethanol-production methods highlighted the fact that, while ethanol from corn is a burgeoning business, not a single plant has been built to produce “cellulosic ethanol” from other organic material. Working to change that is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, which has a $21 million annual program studying the economics and technology of non-corn ethanol production.
But, as the Daily Camera’s Todd Neff reports, promised increases in research funding for NREL have not come through, largely because of congressional budget wrangling over Bush’s 2007 budget, which would push up spending on cellulosic research by $59 million. “NREL has the world’s top cellulosic ethanol research group,” writes Neff, “but its research funding has not grown with its political and strategic importance.”
-- Here’s an idea: let’s replace the 20,000 light bulbs in the state Capitol with energy-efficient bulbs. Actually, not only has that idea has been raised previously, but the new bulbs have been sitting in the Capitol basement for a year, since former Rep. Tom Plant of Nederland arranged to have them donated. “ Why they haven’t been installed,” deadpans Rocky Mountain News reporter Alan Gathright “is open to debate.”
-- Kicking off the earnings reporting season for major oil companies, ConocoPhillips said its profit dropped 13 percent, reflecting oil prices that have fallen from their 2006 peaks and spiraling exploration and production costs. Exxon Mobil and Chevron, wich report next week, are expect to show similar slides. One bright spot for Conoco was its oil-sands venture in the Canadian Rockies with EnCana Corp.
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http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/
Charles Krauthammer:
"The president ostentatiously rolled out his 20-in-10 plan: reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. This with Rube Goldberg regulation -- fuel-efficiency standards, artificially mandated levels of "renewable and alternative fuels in 2017'' and various bribes (er, incentives) for government-favored technologies -- of the kind we have been trying for three decades.
Good grief. I can give you a 20-in-2: tax gas to $4 a gallon. With oil prices having fallen to $55 a barrel, now is the time. The effect of a gas-tax hike will be seen in less than two years, and you don't even have to go back to the 1970s and the subsequent radical reduction in consumption to see how.
No regulator, no fuel-efficiency standards, no presidential exhortations, no grand experiments with switchgrass. Raise the price and people change their habits."
Rationing would eliminate folks driving a few hundred or thousand miles to protest drilling a well. Or objection to drilling, then insisting that it is fine for them to use hundreds of gallons in a gas guzzler on long vacations "because we can afford it".
Rationing woud level the playing field, even Mr. Gore would have his wings clipped. Rationing could be stopped if the impact on the economy was too great, a tax will never be stopped....no matter what.
Beyond that, I think a big problem is that there is little understanding of how we actually get power now (particularly electirc power). How much do reporters, pundits, academics and the public really understand abut producing mass quantities of electricity - what the daily difficulties are, etc? From my perspective - very little.
I've worked in the nuclear indistry for over two decades and have tried to provide a dose of reality in my novel Rad Decision - which is available online at no cost to readers at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com . (They seem to like it judging from the homepage comments.) It's also now in paperback at online retailers.
"I'd like to see Rad Decision widely read." - Stewart Brand, founder of "The Whole Earth Catalog" and noted environmentalist.
I agree with Charles Krauthammer above. Put an extra two dollar tax per gallon and put a good portion of that revenue towards renewable energy development. It makes to much sense to hope politicians will do it.