Mar
9
Where Policy Starts for Right Now
March 9, 2010 | 19 Comments
Some commentary is so well organized and on point it deserves a wide hearing. At this blog we tend to look down the road at what might be coming, but. We have to get down the road in the meantime. John C. Felmy of the API has thought this through and managed to compress the main concepts with language that anyone can use to good effect. More surprising is the text that follows is an edited version of an answer given as Mr. Felmy was interviewed. The youTube video is included below. Its not a long read, but a good wake up call to getting on with the important matters for our economy. Now if just 200 million or so American’s would catch on. BW.
John C. Felmy of the API.
There’s a lot of discussion in Washington these days about energy policy, and unfortunately a significant amount of it is divorced from the facts. Today’s discussion tends to focus on immature and expensive technologies that hold promise for the future but do not measure up to the expectations of the American public today.
Here in the United States, consumers expect to have a reliable and affordable supply of energy that helps them heat their homes and fuel their transportation needs. Consumers today also are grappling with a serious economic environment. Job losses and uncertainty make it difficult to plan for the future. Having a stable source of energy can help. In fact, expanding energy exploration and production can have a positive impact on the U.S. economy and the lives of all Americans.
We have a vast amount of undiscovered oil and natural gas in the United States. If the energy industry were allowed to develop it, it would generate jobs, revenue for the government, and reduce the trade deficit. And that’s a win-win-win proposition for the American people. But energy discussions tend to focus on just one narrow segment of the energy industry such as renewables. In general, policymakers are talking more about solar, wind and geothermal than they are talking about oil development.
Yes, we are going to need those resources going forward, but solar, wind and geothermal energy are used to generate electricity. Here in the United States, we have 250 million cars that don’t plug in. They’re going to need oil products into the coming decades. We should produce the oil here in the United States where expanded oil development can generate jobs and revenue, and improve the deficit.
This nation needs a rational energy policy. Yes, we’ll need energy efficiency. Yes, we’ll need alternatives, but we’re going to need more oil and natural gas as well. We’re going to need oil for the cars, we’re going to need natural gas for power generation, and we’re going to need coal and nuclear. Nuclear power has a role to play. It’s encouraging to see that our elected officials are reexamining nuclear policy, and we hope that moves forward.
As a nation, we also need to be mindful of the Law of Unintended Consequences. For example, we think it’s important to consider new ways to power vehicles. Advances in battery technology also are likely to help the development and utility of affordable electric vehicles. But the electricity for these vehicles must be generated by power plants that in all likelihood are burning coal. Furthermore, the new batteries contain raw materials, including rare earth minerals from China or lithium from Bolivia, that have to be imported.
It’s quite possible that the United States could find itself trading one import system for another. This means that our policymakers will need to consider whether it’s preferable for U.S. energy security and the trade deficit to import oil or other materials.
Likewise, consideration should be given to nuclear power’s impact on our energy security. Today 80 percent of our nuclear fuel is imported – much of it from former Soviet Union countries.
A well-conceived energy policy also should take care to do no harm to the energy industry, but rather encourage it to make the investments needed to find and develop fuels for the future. Unfortunately, the administration’s proposed 2011 budget contains provisions that would drain $80 billion from the oil and natural gas industry, which would have the perverse impact of reducing investments. This approach was tried back in the 1970s and ‘80s, and it was a colossal failure. It led to a reduction in domestic oil and natural gas production and an increase in imports. The United States should not repeat that mistake.
Likewise, the nation should carefully examine the ramifications of climate policy. Studies show that the Waxman-Markey bill, which narrowly passed the House of Representatives last year, would uniformly hurt everyone who drives a car, travels by plane, and moves goods and services in a truck by raising energy costs. It also would destroy more than 2 million U.S. jobs and encourage businesses to relocate overseas where stringent environmental regulations do not exist. In this weak economy with the unemployment rate just below 10 percent, this nation should not adopt a policy that exports jobs and increases emissions.
The United States has fueled its economy on affordable and reliable energy for many decades. It can continue to thrive and provide a much needed boost to the economy by expanding the development of traditional energy resources,including oil and natural gas, while investing in energy resources for tomorrow.
John Felmy is the chief economist and manager of statistics at the American Petroleum Institute (API) in Washington, D.C.
Prepared by:
Jane Van Ryan
Senior Manager, Communications
vanryanj@api.org
American Petroleum Institute (API)
Check out our blog at http://blog.energytomorrow.org/
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Felmy makes many good points and I largely agree.
One minor correction on the lithium issue: I live in the middle of North Carolina, and there was once a thriving lithium industry here. The mines shut down not because the deposits were exhausted, but because the foreign sources could be produced more cheaply. There’s plenty of lithium in the US, incrementally more expensive to produce, but quite available.
JPS
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HERE IS A STRATEGY THAT CAN WORK!
Water is likely to begin to replace oil in the not-too-distant future.
Furthermore, future cars can become substantial power plants when parked, ending any need to build coal or nuclear plants and demonstrating that there are exciting alternatives to all fossil fuels.
See: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
For a comprehensive story about water as fuel, see the article about hydrinos at: http://www.american-reporter.com
Understandably, scientists have a hard time accepting the claims of radically new science. That will change as more laboratories repeat the experiment published by Rowan University. It has also been performed by GEN3 Partners, who advise Fortune 100 firms.
One of the national labs should repeat the experiment, and then design a few of their own.
As new technology, using water as fuel, is demonstrated and then reaches the market, it will become increasingly difficult to ignore and deny.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked, within a matter of months bombers rolled off the assembly line at Ford’s Willow Run plant every 59 minutes.
These radically new technologies are inherently less complex and extremely cost-competitive.
Imagine what an all out effort to develop them rapidly could accomplish!
Support to reduce the cost of imported oil will clearly be widespread.
[…] link: Where Policy Starts for Right Now | New Energy and Fuel Share and […]
About one disruptive technology.
To get sufficient amount of oil there is an innovative technology for oil/gas detection to significant increase of world energy potential and mitigate the economic crisis.
With new exploration technology (patented invention US 7,330,790) we could make up to three times more oil and gas discoveries than when using conventional technology. And the fact that new technology won’t need more investments is also very important. It can significantly mitigate world energy problems.
The technology is designed and successfully tested in the Barents and the Black Seas as well as in the Gulf of Mexico (see: http://www.binaryseismoem.weebly.com).
But the Big Oil Companies ignore the disruptive technology and drill 75% dry wildcats for nothing to support higher gasoline prices.
A. Berg, Ph.D.
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Some of us think further than the next quarter, sir. Every drop of oil we use now is a drop we will not be able to use later. And to exhaust our meager reserves of oil right now would be a crime our children will never forgive us.
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