Answer: His lips are moving.
Barack Obama just promised to end our dependance on oil from the Middle East. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, horse puckey.
It doesn't matter what we do: drill, research alternative energy, raise CAFE standards . . . in 2018, we'll still be using oil. Even if we discovered a magic source of clean renewable energy tomorrow, we'd still be using a lot of oil, because transitions of that magnitude take time. A lot of time. If a price competitive solar heating system came out tomorrow, would you run out and buy one? Or would you wait until the oil heater broke?
Moreover, cutting our consumption of oil will not do anything to reduce our dependance on oil from the Middle East. First, because other countries--countries we trade with--will still be using the stuff, so changes in oil prices will continue to whipsaw our economy. And second, because the price of oil is set on the world market. If we cut world consumption back to 20 million barrels a day, we would be totally dependent on Middle Eastern oil, because they're the low-cost producers--it takes, if I recall correctly, less than $5 a barrel to pull oil out of the ground in Saudi. The Middle East will be the last place to close the taps. The more we cut world consumption, the more dependent we'll be on crazy Middle Eastern governments. Those governments might not be as rich. But we'll still need them just as much, as long as oil remains critical.
And it will remain critical. Not just because our battery technology is not up to a thoroughgoing changeover in our transportation system. But also because we use oil for other things. Plastics--you may have noticed there's quite a lot of that stuff around, in a lot of important consumer goods. Avgas--we won't get battery powered planes any time soon. Fertilizer, upon which the green revolution depends; without petrochemicals and natural gas derivatives, Soylent Green would look prescient instead of silly.
Needless to say, since we do not, in fact, have any technology that looks likely to replace hydrocarbons in the immediate future, this statement is even more
Barack Obama certainly knows all this. He has excellent advisors. But the American public wants to hear that they can legislate the Middle East into irrelevance and Global Warming into Indian Summer. So Barack Obama is going to tell them they can have this In Thirty Days with Absolutely No Side Effects! Not least because you can be sure, John McCain will be making the same
I would posit that "end our dependence on foreign oil" does not mean "we will stop importing any oil".
How about a dramatic reduction in oil imports, which limits our economic exposure to fluctuations in the global price of oil to a fraction of what it is today?
The American economy and the cost of living is dependent on the prevailing price of corn, or soybeans, or any number of other commodities. But nobody ever talks about our dependence on domestic corn, because it's a smaller component of our overall input costs, rather than something where a 10%-20% increase in prices can cause a recession.
I agree the hyperbole is a bit much, but as a matter of policy, I get where he's going.
Just sayin'.
Yup, no need to even try to develop new energy sources, because that would be silly. The MARKET will take care of all of this. The MARKET is sacred. It's just damn silly to talk about anything new, ever.
BTW, it's "dependence."
Megan, you live in Washington D.C. You know and interact with polictal people in DC all the time. Does it really suprise you--as a DC insider--that sometimes politicians bring up straw man issues in a stump speech?
By the way not a whole hell of a lot of our imported oil actually comes from the Middle East (less than 10%, I beleive), it's too constly to transport. So if we switched from, say, Saudi crude to Mexican, would that make any difference, Ms. econoblogger?
Really, this should come as no surprise. After all, every president since Nixon has pledged, PLEDGED, to reduce this great nation's dependence on foreign oil. (see my name for admittedly ideologically slanted details)
Needless to say, we import even more from other nations today than we did in 1973.
Just another example of that wily Obama trying to prove he's ready to be president....by making the same promises as all his predecessors.
Will he pledge to get rid of Castro next?
Any chance it could be he's planning to, I dunno, invest in technology? Improve the batteries? Engineer new materials?
For heaven's sake we put men on the moon.
No way did you write this entire post in the span of six minutes.
Megan, maybe when you figure out how to spell "dependence" (NOT dependance) I'll take the time to read one of your articles and actually take it seriously. Until then, keep writing for your high school or small town newspaper.
MoeLarryandJesus,
Yes. As satisfying as it sounds to you, the market, in the end, WILL do it...regardless of any well-intentioned effort by anyone. It's not because the market is "sacred". It's because it's just the way it is and nothing is going to change that. It's reality.
People ARE TRYING. HARD. Everyday, as we speak and every second of every day. People are working on solutions and investors are funding it. The answers simply aren't ready yet. The government "doing something about it" isn't going to make anything come faster.
All this talk is just pushing on a string. It's inconsequential.
Your loss. The substance of the post was pretty spot-on. My only complaint is that, besides the first and last paragraphs, it was obviously canned.
If we cut world consumption back to 20 million barrels a day, we would be totally dependent on Middle Eastern oil, because they're the low-cost producers--it takes, if I recall correctly, less than $5 a barrel to pull oil out of the ground in Saudi. The Middle East will be the last place to close the taps.
That is rather flawed reasoning. The fact that in the face of reduced consumption we might reach a point where all oil comes from the Middle East does not mean that we would be more dependent on foreign oil.
For one thing, even if in the future the Middle East was the sole source of oil because it was cheaper, it would not be the sole potential source of oil. We could get it from other sources if we had to, by reopening those closed taps. We would be relying on them out of choice, rather than necessity. So the political power that the oil gives those countries would be far less.
The more we cut world consumption, the more dependent we'll be on crazy Middle Eastern governments. Those governments might not be as rich. But we'll still need them just as much, as long as oil remains critical.
As I said before, no, we wouldn't. We would be using their oil because it would be the most convenient, not because there would be no way to meet our needs without it (which is currently the case).
Secondly, the reason people are scared about being dependent on Middle Eastern oil is that they are afriad that the money they spend is being used to empower Arab regimes that work against our interests. If the price of oil went down and those governments were not as rich, it would reduce the real thing that most people who are concerned about such things really are concerned about.
Wow, where to start?
"It doesn't matter what we do: drill, research alternative energy, raise CAFE standards . . . in 2018, we'll still be using oil."
It's not *whether* we're using oil; it's how much we're using that's the fundamental issue here.
"If a price competitive solar heating system came out tomorrow, would you run out and buy one? Or would you wait until the oil heater broke?"
I replaced all of the lightbulbs in my house with CFLs without waiting for them to break. Really, it's that simple: A) realizing that something is a better choice than what you're using, even when you factor in the environmental costs of producing it and the purchase cost, and B) going to the store and getting it.
If you have an issue with the American people not making sound decisions, then I guess what we'd need is some sort of inspiring American leader who can convince people to step up and take action. Hmm.
"Moreover, cutting our consumption of oil will not do anything to reduce our dependance on oil from the Middle East.... The Middle East will be the last place to close the taps."
Of course it would reduce our *dependence*, because it eliminates their ability to use it as a weapon. It's not that people have a problem with the oil coming from *those wells*. We have a problem with them getting rich off of it and having the ability to use it as a weapon against us. By dramatically reducing our oil consumption, but retaining our production capacity, that is *exactly what we get*. They can close the taps all they want; so long as our gulf and Alaska crude can keep up, *we don't care*. And they're not getting rich if they're selling it on the cheap.
"And it will remain critical. Not just because our battery technology is not up to a thoroughgoing changeover in our transportation system."
Um, huh? I'm sorry, but you know nothing of battery technology, and the person you quote in your linked article knows even less. Go read up on A123, Valence, AltairNano, Thunder Sky, LG Chem, Toshiba's SCiB, and about a dozen other makers of automotive li-ions, as well as reviews from people who've used them, and then come back here and talk battery technology. We're talking thousands to tens of thousands of cycles of lifespan (read: hundreds of thousands to millions of miles), ridiculously high power output, the ability to charge in 5-20 minutes (depending on the battery type), ranges ranging from 100 to 300 miles and rising (given that you're supposed to stop for a break at least once every 2 hours on the road for safety reasons alone, that's hardly an issue), at a cell price of $0.50/Wh and dropping (the automotive li-ions aren't even close to being limited by their raw materials costs). And heck, this is just what's out *now*; I could spend hours about what'll be coming out over the next few years. Fluorinated cathodes, layered metal composite cathodes, silicon nanowire anodes, tin nanoparticle/fullerene anodes, sodium-ion cells, and on and on.
How could a sane person actually believe that there's been no improvements in batteries in the past decade? Have you not paid attention to how tiny cell phones have gotten from those huge NiMH powered bricks that people used to use? The same with laptops. Did you really not notice? Some of the fastest vehicles in the world are now EVs. The Wrightspeed X1 does 0-60 in under 3 seconds, and the next version (for commercial sale) should be able to beat a Bugatti Veyron, the fastest car in the world. The Killacycle motorcycle does 0-60 in less than *1* second. Even the 600hp Eliica is about to get trounced by a new 1000hp electric supercar.
"But also because we use oil for other things. Plastics--you may have noticed there's quite a lot of that stuff around, in a lot of important consumer goods."
You clearly have no idea where oil goes. Plastics are less than one percent of all oil consumption.
"Avgas--we won't get battery powered planes any time soon."
They already exist. Whoops.
Aviation fuel is, unlike plastics, a relevant percentage of our total consumption, but still dwarfed by gasoline and, to a lesser extent, diesel.
"Fertilizer, upon which the green revolution depends; without petrochemicals and natural gas derivatives, Soylent Green would look prescient instead of silly."
Most fertilizers are *not* fossil fuel intensive, and can be fossil fuel free or nearly free if you use fossil-fuel-free mining and transport. The only ones that are fossil fuel intensive are the nitrate/ammonia based fertilizers, and they are made from *natural gas*, not oil. You're trying to conflate the two. Natural gas is the most common, cleanest, and easiest to make synthetically fossil fuel (anaerobic biomass decay, Fischer-Tropsch, etc).
It's good to see that Megan has started to become more critical of Obama. The man claims to be ushering in "a new kind of politics" but he tells whoppers just like every other politician.
He has no plan to end our dependence on Middle Eastern Oil. He's a charlatan. A snake oil salesman. And he's a very good one. but eventually even the best salesman's pitch gets tired.
People are getting tired of Barak Obama, just as Megan evidently is (if belatedly).
Megan, you're a sweetheart but your entire argument is self contradictory. You lay out a detailed and eloquent appraisal of why dependence on oil (which it goes without saying is a rapidly dwindling finite resource) poses a cataclysmic threat to the US economy and human civilization in general. Therefore, the only logical way to avoid that cataclysm is to do exactly what Barak Obama is proposing; forcing as much as possible the country to stop using (primarily imported) oil. That he would like to succeed in that endeavor isn't lying.
I'm cynical half the time myself, but when I hear John McCain laughing at the idea of tire pressure gauges, I consider him part of the problem and when I hear Barak Obama say he wants to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, I view him as part of the solution.
There is a difference between "use" and "dependance". When I hear Obama saying that we need to end our dependance on Middle East oil, I hear him saying that we should reduce our use such that we could supply all our needs from other energy sources--included other oil sources, even foreign sources. My recollection is that only 20 percent or so of our oil comes from the Middle East. I think this goal is more than reachable--even if that number is higher. That doesn't mean that we can't use some oil from the Middle East; it's like doodads in the dollar store. If they're there great, if not, society doesn't come to a halt. We don't depend on them.
Bottom line, the more energy we produce ourselves, the better we will get at it. The sooner economies of scale will do their magic. The freer we will be to import more selectively, or god forbid, export.
John V writes: "People ARE TRYING. HARD. Everyday, as we speak and every second of every day. People are working on solutions and investors are funding it. The answers simply aren't ready yet. The government "doing something about it" isn't going to make anything come faster."
Dear Stupid:
Look up "NASA" and "the Manhattan Project." Read what you can about them. Then punch yourself HARD in the face 10 times, because you deserve it.
I realize that the conservative movement has left millions of people stranded on the Island Of Stupid, but it's not hard to learn how to swim. Do so.
Fatalistic?
Ending a dependence on Middle Eastern imports does not mean "using no more oil", and it is meretricious to conflate the two.
If we can end our dependence on foreign oil in ten years, it will be a major blessing for the nation's economy. Why quibble and carp?
A
Megan is right that pledging to "end our dependence" on middle eastern oil is just stupid. Even if we completely eliminated our direct imports of middle eastern oil our economy would still be "dependent" on that oil in numerous ways.
If Obama were more honest he might instead have pledged to reduce our dependence on middle eastern oil.
MoeLJ,
classless writing.
BTW, I'm not a conservative.
And putting a man on the moon and the manhattan project are totally different from energy development. Careful what words you throw at people in glasses houses.
John V replies: "And putting a man on the moon and the manhattan project are totally different from energy development. Careful what words you throw at people in glasses houses."
Dear Stupid: Why are they different, exactly?
And "throw at people in glasses houses"? Could you rephrase that so it makes sense in English?
AHJ wonders: "If we can end our dependence on foreign oil in ten years, it will be a major blessing for the nation's economy. Why quibble and carp?"
Exactly. Even if we make just a little progress in that direction, is it worthless to make the attempt?
McCain calls for drill, drill, drill, when there's no expectation that it would make any real difference. What exactly makes anyone think a Repiglican can offer ANY hope of progress on this issue? Sheer stupidity?
"Look up 'NASA' and 'the Manhattan Project.' Read what you can about them. Then punch yourself HARD in the face 10 times, because you deserve it."
Top-down mega projects are NOT the only way to innovate.
The government didn't invent the personal computer, the internet, Google, the iPod, the automobile, the birth control pill, penicillin, the refrigerator...
You get my point. If you name one thing the government invented, I'll name twenty that came from private enterprise. There's a reason why the United States was the world's motor of innovation throughout the 20th century, and not the Soviet Union. Yeah, the Soviet Union had their mega projects, some of which were successful. But while they could put Sputnik in orbit, their stiff, structured, platonic society couldn't even compare to capitalist dynamism.
If there's one thing I hate most about the legacy of Bush, it's that somehow now "market economics" is a bad word. Come save me Milton Friedman...
MoeLJ,
oh....what an advantage you have to not have to talk to people with your attitude problem.
those two projects operated in a vacuum. They were their own self-contained and isolated endeavors. No need to worry about costs, markets, competition, scalability or any number of pitfalls and variables that are inherent in bringing products to market.
Developing sustainable energy alternatives takes time and is a lot more complicated than you want to believe....far more complex than either project mentioned above.
If you don't see how difficult and beyond the reach of some monolithic public project this is then you simply don't respect the complexity involved in bringing sustainable and cost-effective alternative to market...nor do you seem to appreciate how many different innovators are working on possible solutions as we speak. They've come a long way and still have a ways to go.
Chris quotes and writes: ""Look up 'NASA' and 'the Manhattan Project.' Read what you can about them. Then punch yourself HARD in the face 10 times, because you deserve it."
Top-down mega projects are NOT the only way to innovate.
The government didn't invent the personal computer, the internet, Google, the iPod, the automobile, the birth control pill, penicillin, the refrigerator..."
I never at ANY point said that government backed projects were the ONLY way to innovate, so exactly what are you replying to, chuckles?
By the way, the government WAS involved in the creation of the internet. Just ask the unjustly maligned Al Gore.
Well, if we split hairs -- and politicians will do this -- America could decrease its direct dependence on Middle Eastern oil, just not its indirect dependence.
As Megan says, other countries will use Middle East oil in making products that America will buy from them.
But, in terms of direct dependence -- the physical oil imported -- in 10 years the US probably could achieve this given Canada is already the USA's largest source of oil. Canada and Mexico have significant reserves as do places like Brazil, Venezuela (Chavez won't be there forever) that could be developed in the next 10 years. But, as Megan does mention, all this pre-supposes a higher price.
But this should help drive measures to improve gas mileage in automobiles and the economy.
No doubt that the market is and will continue to work on renewable energy and reducing our dependence on foreign oil to the extent that it is more cost effective than petroleum. However, distorting the market with 150 billion dollars toward research, reduced cost, and infrastructure is likely to help move things along-after all, that's how markets work-if there is money to be had, people will make it. Even if the government is paying. McCain won't spend the money, ergo, less likely to have success.
Obama wants to end our dependence on Middle East oil? As others have pointed out, Canada is our biggest supplier:
http://import-export.suite101.com/article.cfm/usa_oil_imports_by_country_2007
But here's the rub. Obama wants to cut imports of oil from Canada for environmental reasons:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=610810
How can he do both without hurting the poor and working class? If he does both, prices will go up, and this will hurt the poor.
The man is beholden to as many interest groups as the system he claims he will change. Too bad they're the interest groups that don't have my best interests at heart.
Wouldn't developing domestice oil sources (ANWAR, offshore, oil shale...) also reduce our dependence on middle east oil? Sure they are expesive, and yes the price of oil is set globally, but at least the money will stay in the States, and much of it will eventually finds its way into the taxman's hands - not into a new pimped out A-380 for some Saudi prince.
At $20/barrrel it made sense to buy cheap oil fomr the middle east - let them exhaust their supplies while we enjoy the benefit. At $120/barrel, it makes no sense whatsoever.
And I have no problem with investing in new technologies - in 20 or so years, most cars probably won't run on petroleum products, but we're not there yet and we can't bet the economy on those alternatives turning up on schedule.
MoeLarryandJesus:
It makes perfect sense that the Manhattan Project came from the government - they were developing a weapon of immense power. Not an item for which there's too much demand outside the government, and it would have had to be one that could fund and buy the thing, so clearly a major power, QED the USA.
On the other hand, there's a huge payoff waiting for whoever develops alternative energy products and can do so efficiently (hello, hybrid car sales and Honda being the only car manufacturer turning a profit), because those consumers are by and large your average person. And companies already know that. Plenty of market-based incentive there.
"It's because it's just the way it is and nothing is going to change that." JV
TR: And we will always ride stagecoaches on our way to the train station. Once there we'll inevitably use telegraphs to send messages, because the system is set-up for them and nothing else could ever send writing as fast or as well. On the train men will take off their hats because they will always wear hats as the habberdasherers economy depends on it.
Granted 2018 is probably too soon, but economists kind of have to believe in a simplified vision of reality that can't take change in account very well. That's why they give us visions like Malthusian doom, which turn out to be wildly wrong. They have their place, but they're poor prophets.
Liz loves, loves, loves the BIG COMPANIES: "It makes perfect sense that the Manhattan Project came from the government - they were developing a weapon of immense power. Not an item for which there's too much demand outside the government, and it would have had to be one that could fund and buy the thing, so clearly a major power, QED the USA.
On the other hand, there's a huge payoff waiting for whoever develops alternative energy products and can do so efficiently (hello, hybrid car sales and Honda being the only car manufacturer turning a profit), because those consumers are by and large your average person. And companies already know that. Plenty of market-based incentive there."
Plenty of "market-based incentive: to come up with a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon, too, you could say, but it hasn't happened. Is it possible the sacred, sacred market doesn't actually work perfectly? Is it possible innovation is stifled by the beyond-huge titans of industry?
I notice you totally ignored my other example, which was NASA - need a list of space program related innovations? They're quite numerous.
I realize doctrinaire Repiglicans would rather chop off their nipples than admit government can deliver results, but then Repiglicans are all dishonest or insane these days.
Of course he's going to end the US's dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Canadian, Mexican, and Venezuelan oil, on the other hand...
Plenty of "market-based incentive: to come up with a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon, too, you could say, but it hasn't happened. Is it possible the sacred, sacred market doesn't actually work perfectly? Is it possible innovation is stifled by the beyond-huge titans of industry?
Actually, the far more likely explanation is that developing a 100 mpg car that's economical is a really, really difficult engineering problem that nobody's managed to solve yet, but I shouldn't expect somebody who appears to be both scientifically and economically illiterate to realize that.
I realize doctrinaire Repiglicans would rather chop off their nipples than admit government can deliver results, but then Repiglicans are all dishonest or insane these days.
Care to provide some examples?
And no, NASA doesn't count. Much of their best technology was either produced by private contractors or only became really beneficial to society when employed for other uses for which it wasn't designed by private industry, and they've yet to innovate on some of their worst projects (e.g. the Space Shuttle, which has had not one but two fatal accidents in the small number of launches since its inception, a result that would have resulted in any privately designed product being banned).
Xeynon writes: "NASA doesn't count. Much of their best technology was either produced by private contractors or only became really beneficial to society when employed for other uses for which it wasn't designed by private industry, and they've yet to innovate on some of their worst projects (e.g. the Space Shuttle, which has had not one but two fatal accidents in the small number of launches since its inception, a result that would have resulted in any privately designed product being banned)."
I'm certainly glad no one ever dies in accidents run by private concerns. Damn.
And all of those satellites up in space don't owe jackshit to government programs, of course.
Sheesh.
And, one more time - Al Gore wasn't lying. There really WAS a government role in the creation of the internet, and he was involved in it.
Are there any honest, sane conservatives left, or did the last two cannibalize each other to death?
The plague on both of your houses...
The markets work, and it's because they work that we may actually end our dependence on foreign oil. The role of the government is not to start another "Manhattan Project" or to "put the man on the moon", but to create incentives, including tax breaks and tax PENALTIES, for less oil consumption. New gasoline taxes and tax breaks on hybrid vehicles could be a useful cash-flow neutral combination.
There is absolutely no need to stop the oil imports completely to end the dependence on oil coming from countries with dubious governments, be that Saudi Arabia or Russia. The price of oil is one thing that is NOT set in the world market. Were it so, OPEC oil ministers would have been shot. The world prices react to output levels set by the cartel. It is quite sufficient to reduce the consumption of foreign oil to the level where oligopoly producers have incentives to cheat and to break the output (or pricing, depending on your preferred model) oligopoly equilibrium or cartel-mandated output and pricing. If the cartel cannot impose any penalties on such violators, the power balance will shift from suppliers to buyers, like in any competitive market. (OK, this is rather simplistic, but this is not a WMF white paper, either.)
So, this particular campaign promise is actually something that can be done. Instead of calling it "exaggerated promises", I would rather hold this candidate accountable for his pledge. (Even though it was set to be delivered two years after the candidate's second term will expire.)
WDC - Really, this should come as no surprise. After all, every president since Nixon has pledged, PLEDGED, to reduce this great nation's dependence on foreign oil. (see my name for admittedly ideologically slanted details)
Only the Nixon People assembled what was a coherent energy policy and implemented major steps that achieved major petroleum use reductions.
By 1980, the McGovernites and Reaganites had neutered the drive for energy independence for quite different ideological reasons. And no ruling Party since has made another serious effort.
WDC - Needless to say, we import even more from other nations today than we did in 1973.
Needless to say, the reason for that is primarily though we use less per capita than in 1973, Open Borders and encouragement of high breeding rates in immigrants and welfare recipients has added 80 million new "Americans" in 35 years - negating all conservation savings and adding 20% new energy use demand.
Lesser reasons include Democrat hostility to drilling anywhere, and Republican faith in the "miracle of the free market and the genius of consumer choice" which allowed Arabs to flood America with cheap oil and shut down alternative energy progress.
LMJ - Yes, the government can accomplish certain tasks if it throws a huge pile of money at a problem. But private businesses work more efficiently as long as they have the incentive to do so. Look at the tech Ventner used to sequence the human genome relative to the labs he competed against. Or if you want to look at NASA, compare the cost of the Ansari X prize with what NASA would charge to send a man into space.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansari_X_PRIZE
Government projects work great when;
1. There's no incentive for corporations to improve (like with Phage therapy or herbal medicine, which can't be patented)
2. Government regulations force the government to step in (like messing around with nuclear materials.)
What exactly makes anyone think a Repiglican can offer ANY hope of progress on this issue?
I don't think a Republican or Democrat can solve this problem (unless, perhaps, they jack up the price of gas with taxes or allow recycling of nuclear fuel and reduce some of the regulations there.)
One problem with taxes for a (successful) Manhattan project; we never get to find out what wasn't done because people had to pay taxes to the government instead of building things on their own. But if we look at places like the Soviet Union which made a policy of doing what you propose, we can see the wreck such policies made on the rest of the economy. Such policies are wasteful, and waste means more foreign oil consumed. Manhattan projects, as patriotic as they feel, are usually not the best way to get something done.
Just keep in mind that such a project would be run by the same folks who run our military. How efficient do you think they are?
"I'm certainly glad no one ever dies in accidents run by private concerns."
The space shuttle program has lost two ships in 120 flights. If commercial aviation had such an abysmal safety record there would be no need for government to shut it down; nobody would willingly set foot on an airplane. I happen to think that it's a little unfair to compare safety records in space flight to those in other modes of transportation, but for you to suggest that the safety record of the shuttle is comparable to any private endeavor shows that you haven't spent even a moment thinking about the numbers involved.
A more compelling criticism of the shuttle program is its cost, which is far more than expendable launch vehicles like Soyuz. I think it is fair to say that only a government program could continue to ignore the cost-ineffectiveness of the shuttle for as long as NASA has.
"And, one more time - Al Gore wasn't lying. There really WAS a government role in the creation of the internet, and he was involved in it."
I'm not sure what you are trying to get at here. Al Gore helped get funding for a lot of research programs during his tenure in the Senate, most of which never went anywhere. It seems a stretch to suggest that he was a technological visionary because one of those many projects panned out.
In a larger sense, packet-switching wide-area networks were an active topic of research even outside the scope of ARPA funding. The government funding no doubt helped accelerate the research, but to suggest, as you seem to, that a massive government effort created a whole new area of technology out of whole cloth is ridiculous. Moreover, the development of computer networking (and computers themselves, for that matter) into a widely adopted consumer good was accomplished almost entirely through private enterprise.
Likewise, the politicians' claims that 100 mpg cars will become real and affordable within a single presidential term simply because they will decree it so is laughable. It deserves every iota of ridicule Jane heaped on it, if only because there are so many people who seem desperate to believe it.
This discussion reminds me of the typical bloviating related to discussions of health care: "The British National Health Service doesn't work, so we don't want univeral health care in America." "You have to wait six months to see a doctor in Canada, so we don't want univeral health care in America."
There are, in fact, national health care systems that work well (Germany and France come immediately to mind), which is not to say that they work perfectly which is also not to say that we can't learn something from them. If there were some intellectual honesty associated with the discussion, we would encourage a benchmarking exercise whereby we'd compare our health care system to the best - not the worst - systems out there to see if we could do some things, and maybe many things, better (while simultaneously pacifying the market freaks).
In similar fashion, it is possible for the government to get involved in an issue without the government taking control of the issue. As has been pointed out above, government can incentivize the private sector through tax breaks / penalties. Government can also incentivize more directly through research grants, etc. Government doesn't replace the market - thereby pacifying the market freaks who rightly point out that the private sector operates more efficiently - but government expedites the market function by offering focused incentives. Presumably, the market will respond to the focus and the private sector will do what it does best, innovate in response to incentives.
Yes, this would produce market distortions. And doomsayers will intone the law of unintended consequences. For example, what won't be invested in that would have benefited society? Well, perhaps the markets function efficiently enough to minimize the unintended consequences and society will somehow be able to cope with less versions of new and improved laundry detergent / toothpaste / hand-held computer games while it focuses on more important matters.
Cheers,
This discussion reminds me of the typical bloviating related to discussions of health care: "The British National Health Service doesn't work, so we don't want univeral health care in America." "You have to wait six months to see a doctor in Canada, so we don't want univeral health care in America."
There are, in fact, national health care systems that work well (Germany and France come immediately to mind), which is not to say that they work perfectly which is also not to say that we can't learn something from them.
But neither France nor Germany has single-payer, do they? Canada and Britain do (Britain also has single-provider). So Britain and Canada are more rlevant whenever someone suggests that single-payer would be so much more efficient than the current system and so much better than what the Democrats are currently proposing.
AMERICA, stop dreaming. STOP hoping. STOP making bold proclamations about the future. STOP speaking about a better world. The lofty, HTML-savvy intellectuals, like myself, have told us none of it will work.
AMERICA GIVE UP, GO HOME, STOP YOUR STUPID DREAMING AND SEE THE WORLD THROUGH OUR PRISM of morally bankrupt cynicism and condescension.
Thanks,
Megs
Megan,
I recall that you intended to screen comments for boorishness and name calling.
"It is intuitively obvious to the casual observer" that, in this thread, you have chosen not to do so for some reason. Care to explain why?
Sad and sorry commentary from someone I thought had the intellectual honesty to see more deeply.
Perhaps your issue is that changing the way we do energy seems to require government intervention, it can't be done by the markets alone?
Megan, this is the way the USA works. Railroads didn't get built without "government intervention." Highways didn't get built without government intervention. Computers didn't get built without government intervention.
Every time you use the internet, your cell phone or your microwave, you're taking advantage of the opportunities government intervention created. Your participating in market opportunities that would not have been possible without government.
But there is a flip side. Back in the days when oil technology were being developed, there were alternative fuels, including alcohol-based fuels. Government intervention guided us down the path of petroleum and plastic. I'm certain we'll create new problems with new technology; and you'll be free to blame it on government. But the suggestion that trying to reduce our need for oil, develop better energy technology, and improve conservation without government assistance is shortsighted.
Somehow, I expected better from you. Particularly your suggestion that fertilizers depend on petroleum. I recommended you read "Forty Centuries of Farmers." I'm recommending you read it again. Soil fertility and clean water are, as far as I'm concerned, two of the most pressing issues we face.
As a farmer and a resident of Maine -- where our abundance of clean water is polluted by oil-produced electricity for places like Cleveland and DC, I see that we're falling behind. I grew up on the banks of one of the nation's most polluted river. When I was 16, my state's senator, Ed Muskie, wrote the Clean Water Act. But this law would never have passed without the voices of Americans pressing for change -- without government by the people. Today, I can swim in the river that would once have poisoned me. There are otters on it's shore where once there were only sick muskrats. Each day, I see the benefits of government intervention, and I rejoice that as a people, we cared to say the point-source pollution fouling our waters was wrong. Today, the wealth of the region I live in comes not from what we can spew into that river, but from it's natural beauty. It's still the one of the primary economic engines for the area.
And that's the crux of the matter. Government is not some abstract. It should be you and I and others, working in concert, for a better future. Sure, government can get it wrong. Just look at the banking industry. But it can also get it right -- particularly when it's not government alone, but government driven by the American people.
THis statement is silly"
"And second, because the price of oil is set on the world market. If we cut world consumption back to 20 million barrels a day, we would be totally dependent on Middle Eastern oil, because they're the low-cost producers--it takes, if I recall correctly, less than $5 a barrel to pull oil out of the ground in Saudi. "
If we cut our oil consumption by 2/3 (an unlikely accomplishment, I'll agree) we would be in a situation where we could either pay for oil with ~$15/barrel extraction cost domestically or $5/barrel extraction cost for Saudi oil. That doesn't make us completely dependent. It means that the Saudis can only inflict extraneous costs upon us equivalent to $10/barrel before we tell them to keep their oil.
We would be liberated from the need to maintain contention and balance of power between Iran and Iraq. We could afford to not give a damn about whether the three oil giants + kuwait became a single geopolitical entity.
You stated, 'Even if we discovered a magic source of clean renewable energy tomorrow, we'd still be using a lot of oil, because transitions of that magnitude take time.'
These things take time because you are used to them taking time, we make them take time, we let them take time. We endlessly argue and debate and never get anywhere. Obama's speech in part was a call to make the changes, not talk about changes. We need to start doing things as a country instead of debating about doing things. That is the change that he is talking about and it can occurring in energy, education, etc.....
"Megan, this is the way the USA works. Railroads didn't get built without "government intervention." Highways didn't get built without government intervention."
All but the most fanatical market advocates would agree that government investment in infrastructure is sometimes beneficial. But that sort of investment is way different from promising to invent new technologies that don't currently exist. That goes double when the technologies in question have so far eluded the more motivated researchers who stand personally to benefit from inventing the new technologies.
"Computers didn't get built without government intervention."
This is a very debatable claim. Government undoubtedly had a role in the early development of computers, but that role was more in the vein of providing resources to aid researchers in industry and academe that were already developing ideas for computing machines. This does not resemble the Manhattan Project-style effort to create a miracle out of thin air that the presidential hopefuls are promising us. In any case, computers as we know them, that is, the ubiquitous devices that pervade every aspect of modern life, are almost entirely the product of free enterprise.
"But the suggestion that trying to reduce our need for oil, develop better energy technology, and improve conservation without government assistance is shortsighted."
Why so? As fossil fuels become more expensive, we can expect developing alternatives to become more profitable. What reason is there to suppose that these decentralized efforts will fail? For that matter, what reason is there to assume that a top-down effort from government will succeed? Notably, in the field of alternative energy, government's most recent foray has been a complete fiasco, and an expensive one at that.
Given government's poor track record on keeping any of its promises (particularly the extravagant ones made during campaign season), I'm a little mystified by the surfeit of faith that this time will be different. If you don't mind my asking, why do you think that?
Stupid: *Why are they [the manhattan project/moon landing and "clean energy"] different, exactly?*
The moon landing was also a large engineering task, applying known physical principles and technologies to accomplish a task. In short, the moon landing could be stated as follows: build a rocket, like the ones we already made but bigger, make it fly along a certain trajectory according to newtonian mechanics, build an airtight tin can into the nosecone, stick people there, and make sure it doesn't blow up.
For clean energy with costs comparable to oil, we don't know how to do it. You can't write down a plan, explaining which technologies will be used, what improvements need to be made, etc as to how this would be accomplished. The plan, as it currently stands: "spend a lot of money, ..., now we've got clean energy."
There is only one technology capable of filling in the "..." for a certain segment of our energy needs, but Obama has stated that he opposes this technology (McCain doesn't mind, however). (Isn't it weird when a dem ignores the science, and a rep follows it?)
rpl,
I gave my reasons. I've seen, first hand, how government can improve lives. Mine has been improved in countless ways; particularly through improved environmental standards and education assistance. I appreciate the opportunities to live in a cleaner world and contribute my government gave me. And I pay the taxes to prove that investment in me was a good investment.
When you start from the premise that government is bad, it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll govern badly.
When you start from the premise that government is people working together and expect their participation, it is entirely a different matter. Time and again, we've come together in times of crisis. Though it's often messy, government has worked for the greater good. I see no reason this crisis should be any different.
You imply that a government effort would replace a decentralized effort. Isn't it possible, instead, that it would augment it? The internet connection you're using right now goes a long way to proving the point.
Yes, government fails in many ways. But it also does tremendous good. I opt to reward and encourage the good.
government didn't invent ....the internet, Google...
Actually, government (or publicly funded entities) did invent the Internet and the Web (lookup Tim Berners-Lee).
As for Google, it came out of a university -- granted a private one not public, but one that gets more than its share of public funds. And if it had not come out of Stanford, it might as well have been UC-Berkeley.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
I have to agree with many of the commenters above in saying that, Megan, you missed the point. Energy independence doesn't mean we will be free of oil, but rather we will independent enough so that oil markets won't dramatically influence our economy, wreck our environment or ensnare us in the geopolitical mechinations of the elite. It's an admirable vision for America and 10 years is a good time frame in which to set realistic goals.
If you were PAYing ATTENTION to the policy statements made by Obama and others throughout the convention which DETAILED all the different POLICIES, taken together as plan to construct AN INFRASTRUCTURE for a free market society to build upon, it is a pretty impressive journey we are about to take.
Quit being so negative, and get on board. Our country's future hangs in the balance, and as hokey as it may seem to you, the YES WE CAN attitude is all we need to get started.
You really need to pay attention to what he said. He did not say "foreign oil" he said "Middle East oil". When you consider that Middle East oil accounts for only about 10 - 15% of the total oil we import - not the total oil we use - this goal is quite doable.
Markets may determine prices but government policy always influences markets. US policy has always been free use of roads, low energy taxes and strong environmental controls on domestic energy production. That's the perfect storm of policies to insure continued dependence on foreign oil. Throw in fiscal mismanagement of the US economy leading to the loss in value of the dollar, and that dependency quickly becomes unmanageable.
The better policy is Pigovian taxes to recover the externalities related to energy use (including pollution and the military cost of protecting the Persian Gulf)and development of domestic resources. Much of the development of domestic energy, particularly renewables, will require improvements to the electric infrastructure. That will require government support to build.
Compare Obama to Dick "conservation-is-not-an-energy-policy" Cheney. Obama has offered compromise on offshore drilling, and last night even mentioned nuclear power as possibility. No Democrat has ever done that before. OTOH the drilling only crowd is profoundly wrong.
A ten year goal of eliminating our dependence on foreign oil sounds right to me. Discounting the campaign hyperbole, it's not impossible. If a continuous reduction in oil imports crashes the price of oil and causes the dissolution of OPEC, the goal will be achieved. Or we can go on borrowing to buy more and more oil until the dollar is worthless and the price of oil if infinite.
You really need to pay attention to what he said. He did not say "foreign oil" he said "Middle East oil". When you consider that Middle East oil accounts for only about 10 - 15% of the total oil we import - not the total oil we use - this goal is quite doable.
You really need to pay attention to what he said. He did not say "foreign oil" he said "Middle East oil". When you consider that Middle East oil accounts for only about 10 - 15% of the total oil we import - not the total oil we use - this goal is quite doable.
You really need to pay attention to what he said. He did not say "foreign oil" he said "Middle East oil". When you consider that Middle East oil accounts for only about 10 - 15% of the total oil we import - not the total oil we use - this goal is quite doable.
You really need to pay attention to what he said. He did not say "foreign oil" he said "Middle East oil". When you consider that Middle East oil accounts for only about 10 - 15% of the total oil we import - not the total oil we use - this goal is quite doable.
Great post, thanks
Keep beating the drum, I am listening
Blaine
You really need to pay attention to what he said. He did not say "foreign oil" he said "Middle East oil". When you consider that Middle East oil accounts for only about 10 - 15% of the total oil we import - not the total oil we use - this goal is quite doable.
You really need to pay attention to what he said. He did not say "foreign oil" he said "Middle East oil". When you consider that Middle East oil accounts for only about 10 - 15% of the total oil we import - not the total oil we use - this goal is quite doable.
Power (and money) aggregates. This is a fundamental principle. We know this because this is how the world works, everywhere, in every case, in all of history. A market that is entirely free of governmental control will soon be an oligarchy. So you have a choice, you can either have markets controlled by a entity ostensibly resposible to the electorate or you can have markets controlled by the companies who are making profits. Surely the best way to go is to have the electorate police the market to maintain the highest level of freedom possible, which still means reform and control by the government.
Libertarians have this crack-smoking idea that if only we could get government off the backs of the people then everything would be rosy. It's laughable for two reasons: 1)it's never ever ever ever worked before and 2)the libertarians themselves don't focus their energy on the real problem in the free market: oligarchy. Instead they talk about government mandates for clean energy as if that is really what's screwing up the economy. It's such a joke.
Excellent job in the comments. I came here to respond but everyone has taken the words out of my mouth. Ms. McArdle, on the other hand, wants to put words into Obama's mouth and make hims say things that he didn't. Hence all of these comments.
His goal is absolutely achievable...and not in some shot-to-the-moon sense. Not like Gore's goal of zero-carbon electricity, which is worthy if not realistic. But the two together, though, and Obama's goal will be met and then some. We can reduce our oil dependence by 10-15% in 10 years. That's essentially what he said.
Never mind that McCain will say the same thing next week.
I'll add my voice to the chorus. Yes, it was hyperbole. Yes, oil from the Middle East may remain key and even become a larger % of our overall oil consumption. But you aren't giving fair consideration to what "dependence" means. "Dependence," as I see it, means whether or not we could do without Middle East oil if we had to. And that MIGHT be possible, mightn't it?
Rei - All those powerful exotic electric vehicles that you post about all have very short range compared to regular cars. And all those relatively advanced batteries costs a lot. That's not so bad for exotics, which are going to be expensive anyway, but not so good for regular transportation.
As for "the ability to charge in 5-20 minutes", well not from regular outlets, that would require special high voltage charging equipment, which we simply don't have available, to nearly the extent that we have gas stations. Having to build all the new infrastructure is expensive. Also 5-20 minutes is still longer than a refill from a gas pump, and is something you will have to do more often.
There is a difference between USING foreign oil, and ending a DEPENDENCE on foreign oil. Simply to discover one or more renewable, clean, profitable, scalable fuel sources would be adequate, whether or not we fully scaled them in ten years.
Even if we don't accomplish the goal, I took it be Obama's version of the JFK challenge to put a man on the moon.
It is exactly the right one. Even if we fail. Sign me up.
And John McCain's big vision?.... boot Russia out of G8?
Holy Batman! Rei, are you the same Rei from Slashdot?
Duh! Of course you are, just click your name!
zic,
It seems to me that your reasons for putting your faith in government rest on several dubious assumptions. It appears that if government had any role whatsoever in the development of a technology then you are willing to credit them with an essential role. I am not so certain. The internet connection I am typing this message on owes far more to Intel, Cienna, Cisco, Google, AOL, et al. than to government because without those private enterprises the internet would have remained a sandbox for academics, rather than a useful tool for virtually everyone.
Even if you grant that government can play an important role in encouraging speculative research with only long-term prospects for returns (a statement that I largely agree with, as it happens), that is a far cry from what the politicians are promising us now, viz., energy independence in the next 10 years. Government has a lousy record at bring useful products to market, to say nothing of its questionable record at picking winners and losers in the technology arena.
Likewise, I don't find the passage of environmental standards to be very convincing because those regulations simply required industry to apply existing technologies. That's ok, as far as it goes, but wouldn't you concede that it's not remotely comparable to developing and fielding the array of alternative technologies that would be required to achieve energy independence.
"You imply that a government effort would replace a decentralized effort."
Perhaps I was unclear. I recognize that a government effort need not displace private enterprise, but the particular efforts being proposed, the ones that invoke the Apollo and Manhattan projects as models, will certainly do so if they are allowed to proceed. In point of fact I don't think that will happen because I think that most of what we are hearing from the politicians is just so much hot air and will be attempted in a token way, if at all.
And that brings us back to the original context of the argument. Should we ridicule politicians who make wildly improbable promises that demonstrate their ignorance of science and engineering, or should we treat them as serious people with serious ideas. I think we as a country and as a society would be a lot better off if we did more of the former and less of the latter.
"Actually, government (or publicly funded entities) did invent the Internet and the Web (lookup Tim Berners-Lee).
As for Google, it came out of a university -- granted a private one not public, but one that gets more than its share of public funds. And if it had not come out of Stanford, it might as well have been UC-Berkeley."
If you're going to claim that anything developed by anyone who ever received government funding or support was "invented by the government," then in my opinion you're setting the bar way too low. Under that definition you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that wasn't invented by the government. After all, almost everybody went to a public school at some point in their lives. I think your argument speaks more to the pervasiveness of government than to its efficacy as a technological innovator.
In any case, neither Google nor the WWW, nor the internet itself resulted from a high-ranking politician conceiving of the result and mobilizing forces throughout the economy to make it happen. At best, it was the result of a long-term policy of low-level funding for basic research and speculative development.
If that's what McCain and Obama are proposing, then I'm all for it, and I retract all the bad things I've been saying about them, although I'd note that the government already does this, so it's not exactly a bold new vision. However, I understood them to be advocating massive top-down programs to achieve their goals. Those programs are a lot likely to turn out a lot more similar to ethanol subsidies than to the internet.
The idea that the only thing holding us back from energy independence is the lack of a political champion is laughable, and it should be treated as such. If we started laughing politicians off the stage when they make ridiculous statements, then maybe after a while we'd start getting some good policy out of Washington. That would be a change I could believe in.
Proof Barack Obama is an Elitis,
He has no Agenda, he answers no hard question,, He got Biden to give him more credibility ,,, Obama Stole the Presidential Seal ,,to call his own, I guess he thought he is Hitler for a second,
Now as we are speaking Obama is changing the stage,,,at the convention center, to a ROMAN THEME,
Now Barack Obama THinks he is Julius Caesar or worst He think he is the 2nd Coming of Christ,,,
The Ego on Barack Obama is getting worst and worst,, and its Barack Obama who wont let this go...
Soon He going to have someone to try to knight him, Or go for a dictator ship, what is next with Barack Obama,
He does these things so much to screw up and come back with the same lame excuse.
When does it end with Barack
And where are all these big stars at his convention everyone talking about,
All I heard was alot of Earth wind & Fire old crap,, I thought this convention was for all American not just the Black Community,,
And Michelle Obama,, On monday was a joke she did not come out looking better at all, She actually Hurt Obama,Everyone thought she was Fake Before now she a Phoney Scripted Fake person,, what a joke, the best nights so far are the clintons, And they All they could by force,, for the Obama's now it up to them..
No more blame, It was never up to the clintons anyway to give Obama Her delegates If Obama won, iTs Barack Obama who should be the one getting and uniting the Democratic Party,,, But Captian Pelosi forced to Clinton do it!!!!!!
Hi Megan,
Even conservative estimates predict a peak in the world oil supply within 20-30 years. More realistic estimates, for instance, by The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO)estimates the world oil peak of traditional oil reserves to peak in 2011. Even the below study written by the U.S. Department of Energy, expects peak oil within the next decade. There will still be oil, but there will be much less on the market as it it will be much more expensive to produce. Our new discoveries have continued to decrease exponentially over the past 50 years, so we are not going to find enough to keep up with our current energy needs, let alone growing world demand. You are right, every Presidential candidate promises to release us from the grips of our foreign oil addiction. Yet, every president also cripples under the pressure of their voters who want cheap gas, and cheap energy. Obama is "trying" to change this vicious circle that is a byproduct of our addiction to oil, middle-eastern or not, by charging the conversation from the economics of oil to the economics of energy, energy independence, and energy sustainability.
Now this will not be easy, impossible maybe. But for you to say, "It doesn't matter what we do...Even if we discovered a magic source of clean renewable energy tomorrow, we'd still be using a lot of oil, because transitions of that magnitude take time. A lot of time." is terribly flawed logic and an incredibly stagnant way of thinking. I will paraphrase your logic "This is the way it has always been, and it cannot ever be any different. This train is moving and it is going off that cliff. Brakes...well we have never used the brakes, sounds dangerous"
The market will eventually sort this out but it will not be pretty, the market is not always pretty. Remember that the market is made up of us, you and I, and that the market is not a out of control train but people who make decisions. Obama is trying to help educate people on the train to hit the brakes and figure out new ways to make energy, even if it takes a while. He is speaking directly against your kind of stagnant thinking.
****
Report on Oil Resources
Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Petroleum Reserves
Office of Naval Petroleum
and Oil Shale Reserves
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, D.C.
March 2004
http://www.evworld.com/library/Oil_Shale_Stategic_Significant.pdf
Hi Megan,
Even conservative estimates predict a peak in the world oil supply within 20-30 years. More realistic estimates, for instance, by The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO)estimates the world oil peak of traditional oil reserves to peak in 2011. Even the below study written by the U.S. Department of Energy, expects peak oil within the next decade. There will still be oil, but there will be much less on the market as it it will be much more expensive to produce. Our new discoveries have continued to decrease exponentially over the past 50 years, so we are not going to find enough to keep up with our current energy needs, let alone growing world demand. You are right, every Presidential candidate promises to release us from the grips of our foreign oil addiction. Yet, every president also cripples under the pressure of their voters who want cheap gas, and cheap energy. Obama is "trying" to change this vicious circle that is a byproduct of our addiction to oil, middle-eastern or not, by charging the conversation from the economics of oil to the economics of energy, energy independence, and energy sustainability.
Now this will not be easy, impossible maybe. But for you to say, "It doesn't matter what we do...Even if we discovered a magic source of clean renewable energy tomorrow, we'd still be using a lot of oil, because transitions of that magnitude take time. A lot of time." is terribly flawed logic and an incredibly stagnant way of thinking. I will paraphrase your logic "This is the way it has always been, and it cannot ever be any different. This train is moving and it is going off that cliff. Brakes...well we have never used the brakes, sounds dangerous"
The market will eventually sort this out but it will not be pretty, the market is not always pretty. Remember that the market is made up of us, you and I, and that the market is not a out of control train but people who make decisions. Obama is trying to help educate people on the train to hit the brakes and figure out new ways to make energy, even if it takes a while. He is speaking directly against your kind of stagnant thinking.
****
Report on Oil Resources
Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Petroleum Reserves
Office of Naval Petroleum
and Oil Shale Reserves
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, D.C.
March 2004
http://www.evworld.com/library/Oil_Shale_Stategic_Significant.pdf
Food for thought: If we were able to achieve the goal of Artificial General Intelligence, we would be able to solve the energy problem PLUS any other problem we felt like. It would just use its intelligence and easy access to reams of data to propose the best solution to anything. So, really, that's what we should devote a Manhattan Project to, if anything.
But, I guess it doesn't sound as cool for a politician to announce that he's going to fund AGI, as it does to talk about clean energy (which an AGI could give us in a few seconds). So no one proposes it, even though it would give us strictly more.
Hi Megan,
Even conservative estimates predict a peak in the world oil supply within 20-30 years. More realistic estimates, for instance, by The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO)estimates the world oil peak of traditional oil reserves to peak in 2011. Even the below study written by the U.S. Department of Energy, expects peak oil within the next decade. There will still be oil, but there will be much less on the market as it it will be much more expensive to produce. Our new discoveries have continued to decrease exponentially over the past 50 years, so we are not going to find enough to keep up with our current energy needs, let alone growing world demand. You are right, every Presidential candidate promises to release us from the grips of our foreign oil addiction. Yet, every president also cripples under the pressure of their voters who want cheap gas, and cheap energy. Obama is "trying" to change this vicious circle that is a byproduct of our addiction to oil, middle-eastern or not, by charging the conversation from the economics of oil to the economics of energy, energy independence, and energy sustainability.
Now this will not be easy, impossible maybe. But for you to say, "It doesn't matter what we do...Even if we discovered a magic source of clean renewable energy tomorrow, we'd still be using a lot of oil, because transitions of that magnitude take time. A lot of time." is terribly flawed logic and an incredibly stagnant way of thinking. I will paraphrase your logic "This is the way it has always been, and it cannot ever be any different. This train is moving and it is going off that cliff. Brakes...well we have never used the brakes, sounds dangerous"
The market will eventually sort this out but it will not be pretty, the market is not always pretty. Remember that the market is made up of us, you and I, and that the market is not a out of control train but people who make decisions. Obama is trying to help educate people on the train to hit the brakes and figure out new ways to make energy, even if it takes a while. He is speaking directly against your kind of stagnant thinking.
****
Report on Oil Resources
Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Petroleum Reserves
Office of Naval Petroleum
and Oil Shale Reserves
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, D.C.
March 2004
http://www.evworld.com/library/Oil_Shale_Stategic_Significant.pdf
zic - When you start from the premise that government is bad, it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll govern badly.
What about starting with the premise that government has costs as well as benefits? Sure, we could give everyone ponies and then tax them to pay for the ponies. And we could use the fact that everyone now has a pony to prove that "Government Works!" But it ignores the question of what people might have done if they didn't have to pay for so many damn ponies (that were most likely purchased from some special interest at an inflated price.)
On the average, government is less efficient than private industry. So if we want the government to take over in a certain area, there needs to be a good reason why private industry can't fill in. (Lack of incentives, unable to get the land via eminent domain, government regulations or security issues, etc.) I'm all for the government offering incentives to use electric powered vehicles but that's not what's being proposed here.
This is so Typical of Obamanation Voters,
Obama Campaign calling the kettle Black,,,
Sarah Palin has Has Just as much experiance as Barack Obama if not more so,, Obama has NO Experiance and riding on the Coat tiles of the black Nomination,, There is no way Thay can put her down,, Say she Not experiance because,,Then Barack Obama will have to say since he have 0 experiance what make him so special,
Attacking Her going to be like attacking him self,,
This is going to be good, We finally have a woman to vote for,, I voted for Hillary and like I said I voting for McCain, now that he picked a woman,, more woman voter are voting for her,,,
Sarah Palin will be a great VP,, anyone who says other wise, will have a lot of explaining to do,, Because,, Barack Has NO experiance and he thinks he could be President!!!!!
And Barack Speech was the same old speech he gives Everyone wants change Why don't someone tell Barack Time to get an Agenda, Time to change his speech's he been singing,, getting old,
But then again Only Barack thinks everyone should vote for him
No matter what criminals he had with him,, Ryzko , Who got barack his House,, and Like always,, barack bringing up McCain Houses, how dumb again, calling the kettle black again,, 2 people Rich People,,,1 worth 4 million and the other worth 400 million,, Gee to me and every other middle class in america Rich is rich,, so barack want to get into a pissing match over Houses,, instead of telling the people what he going to do,, He done Nothing every news Media knows he adopted Hillary campaign, Pelosi and Dean And Barack Obama are making Hillary Unite this party ,, Barack Obama won the Primary so why is it up to Hillary to unite this party,, Why are they asking Her,is this all she can do,, it not up to her,, Its up to Barack Obama,, What we have Here is Bush Tactics, they are going to do all they can to fraud and Hi-Jack this Campaign, and rig the election, like they did with Hillary,, they way they gave Obama florida and Michigan even tho Hillary won those fair and Square ,,no Barack wants half after the fact,,,
Well I am glad Hillary is not the vp for barack now she can run in 2012, against McCain ,,,and she can be the first Woman President, But right Now Sarah Palin going to be the First Woman Vice President, who has Just as much experiance as Barack Obama,, McCain Made a great choice,
I guess That greek temple of a joke stage barack made for his speech is the closest he going to get to the white house,,
He Really thinks He is already President, Well at least I did go out and started using barack obama energy Plan I bought a TiRE GUAGE, ,, wow we are saving money Now,
Don't FOR Get BarackObama Seal,, He Stole from commander & Chief Seal, The Man is an EGO Maniacs,,, I am a Proud Democrat, I will not blindly vote for a Man who will Hurt this Country, I will not do it, If Hitler was a democrat , I have to vote for him,, ,NO way No How NO OBAMA
Hi Megan,
Even conservative estimates predict a peak in the world oil supply within 20-30 years. More realistic estimates, for instance, by The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO)estimates the world oil peak of traditional oil reserves to peak in 2011. Even the below study written by the U.S. Department of Energy, expects peak oil within the next decade. There will still be oil, but there will be much less on the market as it it will be much more expensive to produce. Our new discoveries have continued to decrease exponentially over the past 50 years, so we are not going to find enough to keep up with our current energy needs, let alone growing world demand. You are right, every Presidential candidate promises to release us from the grips of our foreign oil addiction. Yet, every president also cripples under the pressure of their voters who want cheap gas, and cheap energy. Obama is "trying" to change this vicious circle that is a byproduct of our addiction to oil, middle-eastern or not, by charging the conversation from the economics of oil to the economics of energy, energy independence, and energy sustainability.
Now this will not be easy, impossible maybe. But for you to say, "It doesn't matter what we do...Even if we discovered a magic source of clean renewable energy tomorrow, we'd still be using a lot of oil, because transitions of that magnitude take time. A lot of time." is terribly flawed logic and an incredibly stagnant way of thinking. I will paraphrase your logic "This is the way it has always been, and it cannot ever be any different. This train is moving and it is going off that cliff. Brakes...well we have never used the brakes, sounds dangerous"
The market will eventually sort this out but it will not be pretty, the market is not always pretty. Remember that the market is made up of us, you and I, and that the market is not a out of control train but people who make decisions. Obama is trying to help educate people on the train to hit the brakes and figure out new ways to make energy, even if it takes a while. He is speaking directly against your kind of stagnant thinking.
****
Report on Oil Resources
Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Petroleum Reserves
Office of Naval Petroleum
and Oil Shale Reserves
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, D.C.
March 2004
http://www.evworld.com/library/Oil_Shale_Stategic_Significant.pdf
So what he should have said it, "Use all the oil till it runs out.Let's all just throw our hands up the air and give up."
Come now... what do you expect?
rpl, I don't necessarily agree with your assumptions, but I've the benefit of knowing a few founders of the venture capital industry. I'm quite aware of the important role government played in it in developing capital formation.
Ryan W., we've had eight years of of policy supposedly designed to choke government, record deficit spending, and lack of accountability. And I'm not all that fond of where it's gotten us.
I don't give the Clintons or the Democrats credit for the 1990s economic growth, I give it to the development of new technology. But they didn't horribly mismanage growth, either. I don't see anything wrong with having government as a partner in greener energy and conservation. I think there's tremendous opportunity for kids like my 20-year old son, who's studying mechanical engineering. But I would be wary of where benefits go, and target them to smaller, local endeavors instead of multinationals already in the energy biz and to r&d.
we've had eight years of of policy supposedly designed to choke government, record deficit spending, and lack of accountability. And I'm not all that fond of where it's gotten us.
I'm not sure I understand the logic of this. Government is effective at problem solving because people who have promised to limit government have failed to do so?
Yes, Clinton managed to not interfere with industry too much and things went well under his administration. I agree. That's close to the most I expect from any politician.
But I would be wary of where benefits go, and target them to smaller, local endeavors instead of multinationals already in the energy biz and to r&d.
Why? If you want to get the US off fossil fuels, raise the cost of those fuels via taxes. The more complex you make a plan, the more loopholes it will gather. Why care if a large multinational corporation manages to get us off fossil fuels as opposed to a smaller local biz?
Quite frankly, any bullshit about delays, time to convert to clean energy... are simply that, bullshit.
The technologies for clean energy, if not perfectly ready for mainstream use yet, are ready enough that a national network of service stations can begin prepping for their presence.
Delays- are because of lacking government push, and a small hope in the auto industry that the price of gas will go down. As soon as the price of gas went down from 4.30-ish to 3.90, there was an instant change in the cars Americans were buying and automakers were producing. The auto industry has this bad habit of not looking beyond the end of the month or year.
Obama will bring forth the, say, optics necessary for the auto companies to seen ahead. Delays in that can only be stalled by negative crap like this article, and the votes they swing.
Sorry, Rei, but no dice. Your magic batteries are still magic, and press releases about some supposed advance that may improve battery performance as measured by some set of parameters are still just press releases for all of that.
Fusion is still fifty years away. Economic Solar panels have just suffered the 553rd breakthrough that is going to put them on the market any day now. By the mid-century, people will commute to work regularly in flying cars. Etc, etc.
We can be independent of Middle East oil. Remember that 21% of our crude oil imports came from the Persian Gulf last year. That's down from 25% 5 years ago. And that's just imports, it doesn't count the fact that we produce a third of the crude oil that we consume. So, we produce 33%, another 52% comes from non-Persian Gulf sources, and finally 15% of our total crude oil comes from the Persian Gulf. (By the way, these are official Department of Energy numbers.) You're telling me we can't cut our total consumption by 15%? Diesel and gasoline account for roughly 30% of the crude we consume. All things being equal, it would require a 45% reduction in fuel usage, which would happen pretty quickly if we adopt a 35mpg minimum standard. Even without strict regulation like that, a combination of alternative energies, increased domestic production, and increased imports from non-Opec nations would be more than ample to free us from Persian Gulf oil. However, it won't be cheap. You can't have your cake and eat it too. We need development capital for alternative energies, far more than what's currently available. And increasing imports will likely cost more per barrel that the status quo. Not to mention that we'd be fighting China for those contracts. But independence from Middle Eastern oil is important enough that the benefits far outweigh the costs. If we improve the alternative energies enough, we can even get to the point where we can be free of African oil... though probably not Venezuelan oil, but other than political rhetoric Venezuela hasn't been a huge thorn in our side.
Joe, if we reduce our oil use by 15% than the price of oil probably goes down with the lower demand. If the price goes down, then a lot of marginal/high cost oil production goes offstream. The Persian Gulf oil is mostly low cost, pretty much the lowest cost oil supply. Cutting our demand by 15% won't do it.
Also even if we didn't use gulf oil, other people would. If the gulf supply than became disrupted they would try to buy the oil we are using. That includes oil from the US, and also the oil we import from non-gulf sources. So even if we could get off of gulf oil, it wouldn't matter nearly as much as you might think.
As for "All things being equal, it would require a 45% reduction in fuel usage, which would happen pretty quickly if we adopt a 35mpg minimum standard."
1 - Such a standard is very draconian.
2 - The current stock of cars won't turn over quickly, and with such a minimum standard it will take even longer to turn over. More people will keep running the old gas guzzlers rather than replacing them with new "semi-guzzlers".
3 - At the margin when you have higher MPG cars you get less reduction in driving when gasoline costs go up.
The real trick is increasing domestic generation of electricity from non-fossil fuel sources. With enough electricity, you can do two things to eliminate usage of foreign oil - you can generate hydrogen and transition to hydrogen powered vehicles (admittedly still not likely to happen within 10 years), or you can crack carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, and push carbon monoxide through the Fisher-Tropsch process to make syngas and synfuel, both of which already have existing distribution systems.
If we had relatively cheap and abundant electricity without using fossil fuels, we might use it in batteries for cars rather than hydrogen, esp. if battery technology improves to a measurable extent. Storing and transporting hydrogen is somewhat problematic. If you store it as an uncompressed gas it takes up an unbelievable amount of space, if you store it as a highly compressed gas, it still takes up a lot of space and you have issues from the very high pressures (at least you need more expensive tanks, and you can't be as flexible about the shape of the tank). If you store it as a liquid it still takes up a fair amount of space (more than gasoline with the equivalent amount of energy), and you have all the issues that go with cryogenic storage. And for most forms of storage you have issues with losses, and with hydrogen embrittlement.