Berkley Bedell Blog

Solution, Wrapup

President Bill Clinton’s science and technology advisors stressed the importance of the U.S. taking the lead with innovative energy technology, a future multi-billion dollar business, because of its economic ramifications.  Boone Pickens and other entrepreneurs know this and are ready to move.

 

As documented in a post at http://alternativeenergy.dowjones.com/, alternative energy has emerged as a key investment area for venture capitalists.

 

The Ford Motor Company has just released plans to deliver a fleet of new battery-powered electric cars to the United Kingdom for use in a British study.

 

California’s Energy Innovations Small Grant (EISG) Program provides up to $95,000 for hardware projects and $50,000 for modeling projects to small businesses, non-profits, individuals and academic institutions to conduct research that establishes the feasibility of new, innovative energy concepts. 

 

And President Barack Obama has made cimate control one of his two signature domestic policy initiatives. 

 

Concerns that have officially been all but ignored are seeing the light of day.   Progress that has been stymied is being revitalized.   

 

But the fact remains that today, many of us live good and comfortable lives.  We drive big cars, live in temperature controlled houses, do not worry too much about the price of gasoline or our dependence on other countries for our energy supply, and generally are not obsessed about climate change.  We should be. 

 

If our leaders were told that in 10 years there was a good chance of a nuclear attack or collision with an asteroid, no effort would be spared to prevent it.  We must wake them up, and wake up ourselves, to the possibility that air pollution and climate change could be just as catastrophic—Berkley Bedell and Jim Frost. 

Solution, Serious and Silly

As evidenced by the U.S. House of Representatives passage last Friday of a tremendously meaninful bill and the Senate’s anticipated action, serious attention at the country’s highest level is finally being paid to climate change.  The bill’s “cap and trade” policy is an important and reasonable step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  There will be economic incentive that should cause producers of energy from coal and natural gas to tackle reducing their pollutants. 

 

However, federally funded crash programs to figure out how to capture and store CO2 from coal and natural gas are still necessary.  If the problem of CO2 emisssions can be solved, for example, the proven technology of liquid fuel from coal, as used by the Germans at the end of World War II should be reexamined and expanded upon. 

 

And already on the table is T. Boone Pickens program that will quickly give us 20 percent of our electricty.  To implement it he is asking for three things.  First, a 10-year extension of the renewable Production Tax Credit so that he and other manufacturers can do long-range planning and investment.  Second, transmission corriders such as were put in place for highways when President Dwight Eisenhower called for an interstate highway system in the 50s.  Third, fuel for the federal government’s 200,000-vehicle fleet should be switched from gasoline to natural gas.  Congress and the president should act on requests such as these from all energy entrepreneurs.

 

There is also ongoing silliness.  To wit, a recent comment in the Minneapolis-based StarTribune to an article about Minnesota summers becoming hotter if global warming is not controlled:

 

                  I always wanted to move south for my retirement years.  Now the south

                  is moving north instead.  Thank God for global warming.  It’s sure a lot

                  better than the global cooling threat of the 1970s.  Just think, only 35

                  years ago, the scientific “community” was convinced that we were about

                  to enter a period of global cooling…

 

Whether an attempt to be funny or not, the comment pretty well illustrates the foggy thinking and misinformation that must be dealt with as we try to solve a serious problem—Jim Frost.  

                   

 

Solution, Three

In 1715 the British Parliament offered a huge prize for the invention of a way to measure a ship’s longitude; the result was successful, saved countlesss shipwrecks and helped revolutionize world trade.  In the 1780s the French Academy offered a prize for a process to extract sodium hydroxide from sea salt.  From 1908 to 1915 there were three dozen aviation prizes offered including the Orteig, which Charles Lindberg won for flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean.  And the Great Chicago Auto Race of 1895 with its $2,000 prize for the winner is credited with giving birth to the American auto industry. 

 

The tradition continues with the contemporary X Prize Foundation.  Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites Tier One project won the first, the Ansari X Prize, and was awarded $10,000,000 for launching a reusable spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.  X Prizes for genomics, automotive innovation and lunar rover landing craft have also been announced.

 

Our government should institute similar competitions to foster interest and speed up the development of energy saving items, polution reducers and alternative energy production. 

 

Areas in which major awards could be offered to individuals, companies or research institutions for automotive innovation include:

 

·         The first to sell 100,000 cars that get an average of at least 60 miles per gallon of gasoline or diesel in normal driving conditions.

 

·         The first to sell 100,000 American mid-size diesel plug-in autos that meet all environmental pollution requirements and get at least 80 miles per gallon.

 

·         The first that produces 200,000 fuel cell (hydrogen) powered automobiles that use no liquid fuel.

 

·         The first to sell one million gallons of liquid fuel produced from switch grass, poplar wood or other biomass material.

 

·         The first to produce and sell 100,000 batteries capable of enabling a mid-size car to travel at least 50 miles percharge on strictly battery power in normal driving.

 

For coal, this award:

 

·         The first operation of a commercial coal-fired electric utlity plant that operates with 90 percent less CO2 emissions than current coal fired plants.

 

For nuclear:

 

·         The first operational nuclear power plant where spent fuel cannot be processed into nuclear bomb material.

 

·         The first to develop a commercially viable process for removing radioactivity from spent nuclear fuel.

 

And in general:

 

·         The first to sell a specific number of each of a number of advanced energy efficient appliances; items such as refrigerators, washing machines, dryers and dishwashers.  Goals and specifications should be well beyond anything in use today.

 

Awards for achievenment in the fields of energy and environment would certainly encourage development but they also would address an area in which our government has let us down—bringing attention to the problem to the extent necessary for members of the general public to get involved.

 

Solutions are not merely a personal virtue, as former Vice President Cheney famously said in 2001.  They should be a matter of general concern and government action—Berkley Bedell.

 

The Solution, Two

 

To start tackling the problems caused by our use of petroleum products:

 

·         CAFE standards should be quickly updated and enforced.

 

·         There should be a policy of “freebates,” where a tax would be placed on the purchase of a new car with a fuel efficiency less than a certain figure, say 45 miles per gallon to start.  Rebates would be given to purchasers of cars with fuel efficiency over the figure.

 

·         The government should purchase a fleet of highly efficient cars and lease them at the same cost of owning an old-fashioned gas guzzler to persons who qualify because of low income or other circumstances.  The lessee would get a credit for getting rid of his or her old car and be given an option to purchase the new one.

 

·         A mandate should be in place for all large trucks to run on natural gas or clean diesel fuel.

 

·         Development of the use of hydrogen as an automobile fuel should continue.

 

·         The weight of cars should be reduced through the use of new steel and carbon-based sheet metal. 

 

·         Tax breaks for heavy vehicles such as those found in the 2003 Jobs and Growth Act must be eliminated (they allow the entire cost of an SUV to be deducted if it is used at least 50 percent for business in the first year).

 

·         The debate over offshore drilling  in Alaska or anywhere else should not get in the way of other solutions.  Even if the current ban is lifted, offshore wells would not produce oil before 2017.  And of course, drilling for and producing more oil does nothing to solve global warming—Berkley Bedell.

The Solution, One

The Alabama state constitution says, “the sole...object of governement is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property...”  We traditionally have applied this to the need for a strong military but today must expand our interpretation.  Thirty years ago President Carter had already recognized the relationship between war and the energy crisis and knew that, like war, the crisis threatens each of the freedoms we hold most dear.  

 

We must reexamine Carter’s assessment in 1975.  We must accept Al Gore’s “inconvenient truth” that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb and might have only 10 years to avert global catastrophe.  For the effort we must enlist the help of every American consumer, industry, entrepreneur, non-profit organization, school, university, and research center, plus all the nations of the world along with their consumers, industries, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, schools, universities and research centers.

 

It is not something that can be done without national leadership; our government must take the lead. 

 

The first step should be to fund a clear analysis of the problem.  Immediatly doubling the federal budget for climate issues would cost less than one month in Iraq.  The Department of Energy should be reorganized and renamed the Department of Energy and Global Warming.  It must clearly document what has been done so far and what is possible in the future.  It must set challenging goals and become the leader in implementing the plans.

 

Because a major component of the problem is use of petroleum products, particularly gasoline, the first steps we take should deal with it.  More on this Monday—Berkley Bedell. 

You Can Look It Up

Information about energy and the environment is readily available in almost unlimited amounts online.  Below is a sample—time taken to review the following Web sites and articles will be well spent.

 

At http://www.kubby.com/GlobalStorming/index.html it is reported that, “According to a report issued by the United States National Academy of Sciences, catastrophic climate changes could plunge earth into an ice age in less than a decade.  The article has links to a number of important articles on Web sites such as those of NASA, Hubble and the British Broadcasting Company.

 

Nobel-prize winner and former vice president Al Gore’s position was summarized in a Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/) article on July 17, 2008.  He called on the nation and its new president to “deal with the climate challenge.”  His Alliance for Climate Protection estimated a cost of $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion to transform the U.S. to clean electrical energy and likened the challenge to our 60s effort to land a man on the moon but he called it, “… an investment that will pay itself back many times over.”

 

A must-read report was released in October of 2008 by the National Priorities Project.  It is titled “The Military Cost of Securing Energy, ” and may be found at http://www.nationalpriorities.org//Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities.

 

Showing what can be accomplished, Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/) had a story on Nov. 11, 2008, with the headline, “‘Solar City’ proves allure of sun’s energy in Japan.”

 

Also on Nov. 11, 2008, The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/) had an informative, objective story, titled “Food for Thought,” about the possible inflationary effects of increasing the subsidy for ethanol production.

 

In its Nov. 12, 2008, edition, the Christian Science Monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/) had an article that outlined, “a two-step plan that can…lead to an effective (nuclear) waste solution within eight years.”

 

The Minneapolis-based StarTribune (http://www.startribune.com/) reported on Nov. 28, 2008, that the water level of Lake Superior was 9 inches below its long-term average.

 

John Kerry, at The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/) on Dec. 4, 2008, called on the country for support in overcoming “calcified conventional wisdom” and to take advantage of the opportunity for America to lead the world in dealing with climate change.

 

Burying CO2 emissions from the burning of coal deep below the earth’s surface and the resultant “clean coal” is analyzed, as the process relates to the recent economic stimulus, in an online Washington Post article March 5, 2009.

 

In another Washington Post online article, Feb. 15, 2009, experts are quoted verifying the headline, “Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates.”

 

In Minnesota, a legislative committee decided not to even consider nuclear as part of the state’s energy future with a vote against lifting its ban on new nuclear power plants.  The action was reported March 27, 2009, on the StarTribune Web site.

 

Yahoo Green (http://green.yahoo.com/) summarizes the interesting idea of painting rooftops white in a May 26, 2009 story. 

 

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson makes a case for spending stimulus package money on solar, wind and other sources of renewable energy rather than on the attempt to capture and store carbon in a story dated June 5, 2009.

 

And alarmingly, some scientists have speculated that global warming has affected wind speeds across the United States, possibly impacting wind generated power.  The article from June 10, 2009, is on the StarTribune Web site.

 

On Thursday we will write about solutions to the energy and environment problem—Jim Frost.  

Noteworthy First Steps

The automotive industry, in spite of its woes, has made a reasonable start on its way to an electric powered future.  Commuters will soon be able to plug their hybrid cars into an electric outlet overnight and drive to work in the morning using little or no liquid fuel.  This is a no-brainer that solves oil’s two major issues; cars will use less fossil fuel (and it will last longer) and pollution will be reduced.  It will work if we are able to deal with further demands on our electric grid to charge them up.  We also must develop smaller and more efficient batteries, be assured of a lithium supply for their manufacture and properly deal with their disposal.

 

The weight of a typical mid-size American passenger car is 3,500 pounds.  A study at a university in Spain funded by 17 European companies projects that weight could be reduced by up to 70 percent by using “advanced high-resistance” steel and carbon fiber.  It is estimated that reducing a vehicle’s weight by just 10 percent will result in a seven percent savings on fuel.

 

Even with inside the box thinking and while better technology is catching up with the need there are some good results with automobiles.  Our fuel economy standard has remained at 24 miles per gallon since 1985 but in Japan they get 45 miles per gallon and in China 37.  A Toyota Prius gets 50 miles per gallon and a Prius diesel plug-in is projected to get up to 100 miles per gallon.

 

Regular single pane windows have a R-factor of 0.9 and double pane windows with a quarter inch of air space a factor of 1.7.  Windows are now available with an R-factor of 10.  According to the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory these windows will gain more heat than they lose even facing north in the winter.

 

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) have been perfected and are gaining in public acceptance.  It has been said that,

 

                  If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a (CFL),

                  we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year,

                  more than $600 million in annual energy cost, and prevent greenhouse

                  gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

 

Along with better windows and more insulation, CFLs can be added to existing home with relatively little expense.  For new construction, larger wiring systems and pipes will further reduce energy use and loss.

 

Affordable solar electric generation systems that work in virtually all parts of the country are now available.  They can be off-grid where they stand alone.  Or they can be on-grid where during peak usage and at night electricity comes from the power grid and when unneeded can be sold back.  Millions of homes and other buildings all over the country literally could become small power companies.

 

Solar power for heating homes, office buildings and factories is also becoming less expensive and accomplished easily and efficiently, particularly with new construction.

 

In their time the small windmills found on almost every farm in American did away with the unwelcome task of pumping water by hand.  When cheap rural electricty became available it in turn did away with the windmills.  But they are now back in huge new reincarnations, dotting the landscape in California, Texas, Iowa, Minnesota and elsewhere, already with enough power to serve at least 2.3 million American households. The technology has taken off—today’s turbines generate 120 times the electricity at one-sixth the cost of those from as recently as the 80s.

 

Eighty year-old energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens has a very lucid plan whereby wind facilities would produce 20 percent of our electricity, freeing up natural gas to be used as transportation fuel.  Calling the United States “the Saudi Arabia of wind power,” he is sure the combination will replace more than one-third of our oil imports and that it can be accomplished in 10 years.  But even a man with the zeal, experience and financial means of Pickens is stymied without help from Congress.

 

Finally, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires that 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel be produced and used in American by 2012.  Most of this is being accomplished through the use of the ethanol, an alcohol that is blended with gasoline at a level of 10 percent.  Most ethanol is produced from corn but the cost and energy used to grow and process corn, its limited supply, and the consequences of its loss as a food source limit its contribution to solving the energy problem.  A much greater potential exists in the production of alcohol from cellulose found in trees and grass.  The technology for commercialization of cellulose-produced alcohol is expected to be available within five years and it also is technically possible to make fuel from industrial waste and even garbage—Berkley Bedell.

 

Recognition and Leadership

Within both the world of traditional energy and the world of innovation there are options.  Sorting through the options and promoting global change is a task that only our national government can achieve. 

 

This was documented in a 1999 report titled prepared by the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology for President Bill Clinton:

 

                  It is in our fundamental national interest to greatly strengthen

                  international cooperation in energy innovation...Unless innovation

                  to increase energy end-use efficiency and to improve energy

                  supply technology is both rapid and global, world energy demand

                  is likely to soar...entailing higher consumer costs...greater oil import

                  dependence, worse local and regional air pollution, more pronounced

                  climate disruption...and bigger nuclear energy risks...And if the United

                  States abdicates leadership...while others forge ahead, it will cost

                  U.S. firms dearly in their share of the multi-hundred-billion-dollar

                  per year global market...most of which is and will remain overseas...

                  there is a window of opportunity—now open but closing fast—to

                  move the world off this troublesome path.

 

Specific warnings were sounded in the administrations of both presidents Carter and Clinton and in April, 2008, even George W. Bush finally came around after years of denial and suppressing information.

 

The bad news is that even with threats as imposing as any war, short of nuclear, that we are or could be involved with, our expenditures on climate related programs have been only one percent of what we spend on the military.  If nothing else, it should be recognized as a national security issue.

 

The good news is that with or without governmental support noteworthy efforts have been made.  Noteworthy, yes but given the enormity of the task and all that must be done the efforts can only be considered first steps.  We will write about some of them starting Thursday—Berkley Bedell.  

 

Dam It?

Expansion of another of our traditional sources of energy, hydroelectric, is less possible in the U.S. than in the rest of the world.  Although they damage rivers and have a high initial cost, once the dams necessary for hydroelectric production are built, it is renewable and relatively inexpensive.  China has 25 major hydroelectric projects, either proposed or already under construction to be on line by 2017.  The rest of the world’s countries have 11; the U.S. has none.  In our country, existing dams are nearly uncountable and hydroelectric power has been developed to the point that virtually all possible locations already have reservoirs and dams in place—Jim Frost.

Know Your Natural Gas and Nuclear

Ranking well behind coal and oil in CO2 emissions is natural gas.  Basically methane, it is used more and more in electric power plants and in homes for space heating and cooling, cooking, and heating water.  As of 2006 the U.S. has 5.5 trillion cubic meters of reserves.  Our natural gas will last 100 years at current production levels and in the world there are 172 trillion cubic meters of proven reserves—a 1,375-year supply.

 

Natural gas is relatively plentiful and very versatile.  Compressed natural gas is a proven fuel already used in 20 perecnt of U.S. public transit buses.  When burned it releases less greenhouse gases than coal, gasoline or diesel but its contribution to pollution is still significant and needs work.  Its other problems are transportation and storage; many existing U.S. pipelines are at or near capacity.

 

With nuclear power, like coal and natural gas, there really is no question about supply; there are virtually inexhaustible amounts of its necessary element, uranium.  The production of nuclear power starts with nuclear fission, the same process of splitting the nucleus of a uranium atom that causes the explosion of nuclear bombs.  In both cases the energy released is overwhelming, particularly when compared to the energy from any other source.

 

For power generation, the chain reaction of neutrons striking neutrons is controlled and used to heat water for steam to drive turbines and produce electricity.  Including those under construction, there are 475 nuclear power reactors in the world.  The United States, France and Japan have the most; approximately 20 percent of U.S. electricity comes from nuclear energy.

 

Most often cited problems with nuclear power include disposal of its radioactive waste, the extreme consequences of accidents or sabotage, proliferation of nuclear technology and the resultant ability to produce nuclear weapons, and the hazards of uranium mining.

 

However, nuclear plants can also be fueled with thorium, which is even more plentiful on the planet than uranium.  Cost of converting the world’s reactors would not be prohibitive, the element itself is less costly, it produces less waste and contamination, and spent fuel could not be processed into nuclear bombs—Berkley Bedell.

Know Your Coal

Gasoline burned by automobiles puts 1.5 billion tons of CO2 into our air annually but even this does not make them the largest U.S. polluters.  That distinction goes to coal burning power plants, the source of at least 2.5 billion tons of CO2 each year.

 

At the end of 2007 the United States had more coal than any other country—28.6 percent of all proved and recoverable reserves, a total of 267,554,000,000 tons.

 

Grand total in the world is estimated to be 934,196,000,000 tons of which less than one percent is used each year.  Together, the United States, Russia, China, Australia and India have three-fourths of the world’s reserves.  The 1,053,000,000 tons used annually by the U.S. are only .004 percent of all we have; in other words our coal will last us 250 years.

 

As currently produced and used, however, coal is a mess.

 

Air pollution goes hand in hand with burning coal and countries with the most coal have the most pollution.  Seven of the nine most polluted cities in the world are in China and India.  Of the top 10 national polluters, the United States and China emit almost twice as much CO2 as the next eight combined.  Annual emissions of CO2 in Australia and the United States are 10 and 8.2 tons respectively per person.

 

Global warming is the most alarming result of our present use of coal and other fossil fuels but health issues caused by air pollution also are a huge concern.

 

·         Three million persons are killed worldwide annually by air pollution, including 656,000 in China and 527,700 in India.

 

·         Five million persons in the world and 200,000 in the U.S. have pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease linked to inhaled pollutants.

 

·         Three percent of all U.S. deaths and one million asthma attacks have been blamed on air pollution.

 

·         There is growing evidence of a relationship between air pollution and cardiovascular (heart and blood vessel) disease, America’s number one killer.

 

Sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter are the principal components of air pollution and all are products of burning coal.

 

The coal mining process itself is dangerous due to poisonous gases, cave-ins and explosions, and destructive to the environment due to loss of vegetation, killing of wildlife and diminished local air quality.

 

Knowing that the present extraction and burning of coal makes it the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, President Barack Obama and others have advocated “clean coal.”  The phrase itself sounds promising and simple but clean coal burning is nothing more than ordinary coal burned more efficiently or with its gases filtered or captured and stored.  Although we have the theoretical basis on which to develop clean coal, we do not have a successful practical application.

Nevertheless, due to its tremendous supply coal is now promoted—even advertised—as the preeminent energy choice for the U.S.—Jim Frost.

One Place to Start

Free markets and freedom of choice in our democracy often stand in the way of government action, both for good and bad.  But the government has absolute control over the military so we might hope that tanks and other military vehicles become a testing ground and model for increasing fuel efficiency.

 

As we will discuss in some detail later, military spending is out of control.  Waste, fraud, inertia and imperial pretensions have all contributed to a budget that has little relationship to our actual defense needs.  When the time comes to fix this, looking at fuel costs should be on the agenda.

 

Our military is like a fat heavyweight boxer who refuses to acknowledge his problem.  Like individual drivers in the public sector, military managers have failed to recognize and address the importance of weight.  The armored forces were designed to face Soviet tanks on the plains of Europe but today’s missions demand mobility.  A 1982 Army experiment matched 30 Abrams tanks against 30 dune buggies armed with missiles.  The score was 27 dead tanks and three dead dune buggies.  Big, heavy tanks are as out of date in the military world as heavy, gas-guzzling automobiles are in the civilian world.

 

Offering hope is a proposed tank for the Army of less than 10 tons that will be no more vulnerable than the 70-ton Abrams.  It will use 86 percent less fuel and in addition to being able to fit more than one on transport planes, which is the Abrams limit, the new tanks will not ruin local bridges or easily get stuck.

 

Another mistake in military fuel cost analysis is the propensity of designers to use the price when purchased as opposed to when it is delivered.  The Army spends $500 million annually for fuel but pays $3.2 billion for 20,000 active duty troops to maintain and transport it—the actual cost is more than six times the purchase price.

Jet plane fuel should also be targeted.  Air Force B-52 bombers, already being flown by a third generation of pilots, are structurally capable of being operational until 2037.  They are fitted with 50s technology engines but if they were refitted with today’s commercial jet engines they would use 33 percent less fuel and fly 46 percent farther.  Virtually eliminated would be the need for mid-air refueling at a delivered cost of $18 per gallon plus the expense of maintaining a fleet of 55 tankers for delivery—Berkley Bedell.

Change? Well, Not Exactly

One major change we have attempted to control the use of oil as fuel has pretty well gone awry.  Corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards came into being in 1975 as part of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act that, as a reaction to the oil embargo of the prior two years, also established the requirement that the we maintain a reserve of one billion barrels of petroleum.

 

The standards apply to the average fuel economy of all vehicles manufactured by U.S. automakers weighing less than 8,500 pounds.  The original goal was to double new car fuel efficiency by 1985.  The law required “ maximum feasible fuel economy considering technological feasibility, economic practicality, fuel-economy effects of other standards and the nation’s need to conserve energy.” 

 

As automotive technology advanced, the standards were meant to become more stringent but it did not happen.  The standards were not raised at all until 2003; the 1975 Congressional standard of 21 miles per gallon by 1985 for light-duty trucks was delayed 20 years; and from 1995 to 2000 Congress forbade raising CAFE light truck standards even as technology advanced making fuel-efficient vehicles more practical.

 

Fuel economy of all the new cars and light trucks in the U.S. fleet had improved by 62 percent from 1975 to 1985 and the vehicles became safer, cleaner and no less peppy.  Due to the impetus provided by CAFE standards, we cut our oil use by 17 percent from 1975 to 1985 and Persian Gulf imports dropped by 87 percent.  Continued progress with science and innovation at the same rate as the first decade of CAFE would by now have eliminated these imports.

 

But in 1985 Detroit’s emphasis shifted from innovation in fuel efficiency to big and powerful.  By 2003, the average vehicle had 24 percent more weight, 93 percent more horsepower, and was 29 percent faster going from zero to 60 miles per hour but got only one percent more miles per gallon.  Only the nuances of the global market and resultant high gasoline prices in 2008 have caused American customers to rethink owning a new hemi or Hummer—Jim Frost.

The Oil Conundrum

Any discussion of energy and pollution must start with oil.  World oil reserves that are recoverable given existing economic and operating conditions are estimated to be 1,349,000,000,000 barrels (bbl).  Oil is being produced and used at the rate of over 80,000,000 bbl per day.  Although exact estimates of reserves can be controversial, government reports and industry analyses generally agree on these figures.  If they are accurate simple math tells us that at our present rate of production and use there are 42 years and six months of worldwide oil reserves.

 

Four countries—Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran and Iraq—own 50 percent of all oil reserves.  Russia’s 69,000,000,000 bbl rank it ninth in reserves; the United States’ 22,450,000,000 bbl make us fourteenth.  We use 20,730,000 bbl of oil every day so our reserves are less than a three-year supply.

 

The U.S. imports 65 percent of its oil.  On an everyday basis we are dependent on Canada, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria and Iraq for 78 percent of our imports.  We compete for supplies with 20 countries including the next five largest importers, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and China.

 

In addition to the obvious drawback that it is being used up and when it is gone, there will be no more, dependence on oil makes the world’s oil importers dependent on those who control it.  We get the most—19 percent—from Canada, a stable democracy and historically strong ally unlikely to change its posture toward the U.S. in the foreseeable future.

 

But each of our other major suppliers has issues that make its continued flow of oil less than certain.  Bush family friends, the House of Saud, rule Saudi Arabia; it has been called the world’s ninth most authoritarian regime.  In 2004 the 9/11 Commission said Saudi Arabia had been “a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism.”  And in 2006 a Congressional Research Service brief said,

 

      Since...September 11, 200l, some commentators have maintained

      that Saudi domestic and foreign policies have created a climate

      that may have contributed to terrorist acts by Islamic radicals.

 

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez called George W. Bush the devil and said, “The United States empire in on the way down and it will be finished in the near future, for the good of all mankind.”

 

Mexico’s principal problem vis-à-vis the U.S. is illegal emigration.  But while the thousands of Mexicans fleeing north will not affect our oil imports, the country’s well-documented problems with its economy, transportation system, housing, drug trafficking, violent crime, graft, and even supplies of food and water very well might.

 

Nigeria has the world’s eighth largest population and about as much oil reserves as the United States and China combined.  According to one well-known Nigerian, Philip Emeagwali, its oil-based wealth has been squandered on projects such as a new capital city and maintenance of a large army.  A 2004 African issues article on the Web site of The Heritage Foundation says,

 

      ...Islamist radicals hope to exploit Nigeria’s poverty, political

      turmoil, and inadequate law enforcement—thereby making

      Nigeria a potential regional security threat.

 

And then there is Iraq.  Whether or not we believed former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he said, “We don’t take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people’s...oil,” and whether or not we believe there was any real justification for the invasion of our fifth largest supplier, any suggestion that the country represents a steady and reliable source of oil is ridiculous—Berkley Bedell and Jim Frost.

---

 

 

It's Not a River in Egypt

On April 18, 1977, just before presenting a plan to Congress that included formation of the U.S. Energy Department, President Jimmy Carter said in a televised speech,

 

                  Our decision about energy will test the character of the American

                  people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern.

                  The difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war—except we  

                  will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy (emphasis added).

 

He continued,

    

                  (The fuels) we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are running out...

                  we must prepare quickly for a...change to strict conservation and to

                  the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar

                  power.

 

As part of his presentation, Carter also said the situation that day in 1977 was worse than it had been during the gasoline crisis of 1973.  Amazingly, the situation today is worse than it was when his sometimes maligned but prophetic words were spoken more than 30 years ago!

What happened?

In spite of having only about five percent of the world’s population, the United States is responsible for 25 percent of the world’s consumption of oil.  This profligacy has its roots in the cheap and abundant oil of the past that grew into dependency.  Our cars are large and comfortable; their fuel has been a proportionally small part of the expense of owning them (until recently only about one-eighth of the total cost) and for most of us, putting fuel in our cars does not come at the expense of grocery shopping.

Mark Twain’s line, “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt,” pinpoints one reason for our lack of concern.  Although we use two-thirds of our oil for transportation and although we must import almost two-thirds of the oil we use to keep up with the demand, we have not been concerned enough to insist on changes—Berkley Bedell.

 

Tragic Irony and a Two-Edged Sword

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that earth’s surface temperature increased by more than one degree Fahrenheit in the 20th century.  It will jump another two degrees by 2025.  The consequences are rising sea levels, less rain and snow, more air pollution, and increased threats to ecosystems and lifestyles

 

Global warming is principally caused by our dependence on burning fossil fuels and the resultant release of excess carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases.  Carbon dioxide and other gases are always present in the atmosphere and create a warming effect comparable to that inside a greenhouse.  As infrared energy (heat) from sunlight radiates out from a warmed Earth it is absorbed by the gases and re-emitted in all directions including back to Earth.  The next step is pretty simple: increasingly higher levels of the gases have first trapped then released back more heat than used to occur naturally and the Earth’s atmosphere and surface have become warmer.

 

A tragic irony lies in the facts that we are using more of these fuels, creating more greenhouse gases and more global warming, and ruining our land, air and water, while at the same time supplies dwindle, become more costly, or increasingly are under the control of unfriendly governments.

 

The sword in this case truly has two edges.  On the one side are the immediate consequences of our energy use such as dependence on foreign oil, the false hope of ethanol, problems with nuclear power, and health and environmental catastrophes.  On the other are the future consequences of global warming. 

 

The basis for change is exactly what gives a sense of urgency to the necessity for change—fossil fuels are doing irreversible harm to our environment even a they become scarcer.  The problem is easily recognizable; we must get to work dealing with it—Jim Frost.

Energy and Environment, The Problem

This Thursday we will start writing about energy and the environment. 

 

Although only the truly self-delusional continue to deny that the actions of humans have caused a drastic and dangerous change in the world’s environment, as individuals and as a nation we have not done enough to accept and address the problem.  Sources of energy that we have depended on for decades are being used up, the residue left behind is choking the planet, and there are problems with the alternatives.

 

As with the nuclear threat, your comments are welcome.  If you like, we will add what you send us about yourself (see Who You Are)—Berkley Bedell and Jim Frost.