Energy Wars

A serious oil supply crisis is looming, which could push prices above $200 a barrel, a think tank has warned. A "supply crunch" will affect the world market within the next five to 10 years, the Chatham House report said. While there is plenty of oil in the ground, companies and governments were failing to invest enough to ensure production, it added. Only a collapse in demand can stave off the looming crisis, report author Professor Paul Stevens said.

Some GREAT breaking stuff from Obama's town-hall meeting occuring now in Indiana. He opened up with remarks that took McCain to task even harder than he has in the past: "Senator McCain's energy plan reads like an early Christmas list for oil and gas lobbyists. And it's no wonder - because many of his top advisors are former oil and gas lobbyists." Love that he included the fact that his advisors were oil and gas lobbyists. It's as if Barack Obama suddenly woke up and realized all the material he had to work with in going after McCain. But there's much more great stuff:

To understand why fuel prices in the United States have soared over the last year, it helps to talk to the captain of a battered wooden freighter here. He pays just $2.30 a gallon for diesel, the same price Indonesian motorists pay for regular gasoline. His vessel burns diesel by the barrel, so when the government prepared for a limited price increase this spring, he took to the streets to protest.

Builder and author Shay Salomon finds that the happiest home builders are often the ones with the smallest houses. They're less costly to build and maintain, more likely to be finished, use fewer resources and help people simplify their lives. One version of "smaller" is to share a house, which can ease our loneliness while building our social network. Co-founder of the Small House Society, Shay notes that scaling down can enable a ratcheting up of our whole lifestyle, as we revalue quality over quantity. Declaring "Enough", she says, is the most ecological thing one can do.

Record high gas prices have been making the news headlines for the past few months. Each week gas prices top the previous week, resulting in a new all-time high. Unless you are fortunate enough to live, work and play within walking distance from your home, you have been affected by these high gas prices like the rest of the nation. While the public continues to be outraged about gas prices, some politicians (McCain, Bush, and Gingrich) are taking advantage of the dire situation by organizing a push to drill for oil along our coastlines and lift a 27-year moratorium.

The timing is extraordinarily appropriate, and not just because energy is the campaign issue of the week. The wave of Republican mockery currently assaulting Barack Obama's recommendation that Americans properly inflate their tires flows squarely within the tradition of scorn and derision that conservatives have heaped on Carter for decades -- in part because of his call for conservation and sacrifice in 1977.

Four decades after his controversial book, The Population Bomb, scientist Paul Ehrlich still believes that overpopulation - now along with overconsumption - is the central environmental crisis facing the world. And, he insists, technological fixes will not save the day.

I've been a Hubbert Schizophrenic for the past seven years. Perhaps you are one too - the diagnosis is easy. The principal symptom is the attempt by the patient to lead two lives, one involving the Peak and its consequences. One of those two lives is the "normal" one, and includes a future predicated on a series of uneventful jobs ending with a decent collection of pensions, and a house with a half acre of grass and the occasional bunch of dark purple iris at the borders, and plentiful ice creams for many Junes to come.

Print Email Font Resize A new Apollo project needed to solve the energy crisis Pete Ashdown Article Last Updated: 08/02/2008 01:50:55 PM MDT Click photo to enlarge Pete Ashdown * « * 1 * » Last month we saw a Utah Republican congressional full-court press in favor of the oil and gas industries. Heir-apparent to the 3rd Congressional District Jason Chaffetz flew to Alaska and returned with the startling revelation that the energy crisis was solely the fault of Democrats. First Congressional District Rep. Rob Bishop notified his constituents via a slick newsletter that we need more oil, gas and coal.

In a possible breakthrough on energy, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a compromise Friday that would preserve the oil-drilling ban off the West Coast while easing restrictions on exploration off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposal also would provide billions to greatly expand the availability of vehicles powered by alternative fuels.

The current discussion concerning offshore drilling is an example of how hard it is for our leaders to do the right things for the right reasons. If we Floridians are concerned about our pristine beaches, we should be more concerned about the use of septic tanks that are polluting our waters.

With the continuing debate in Congress over the best way to rein in high energy prices, proponents of a full-scale commercial federal oil shale leasing program are hoping that consumer concerns about prices will translate into a windfall for major oil companies.

About 20 House Republicans have cut short their August vacations, gathering on the floor to protest Democratic energy policy and demand that Speaker Nancy Pelosi call lawmakers back into session to vote on an energy package. The bill would include GOP demands for more domestic drilling.

Auto and Oil Industries' Impacts on Energy Has the United States government actually colluded with major auto manufacturers to keep fuel economy down over the past few to several decades? Has the government actually scratched backs with the oil industry in manipulating prices, alternating between wallet-crushing peaks and consumer-pacifying lulls in pricing?

"Gas prices - $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America," says the narrator in the TV ad that Republican presidential candidate John McCain played last week. "Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?"

The current debate over offshore oil leases has put America's gargantuan energy appetite back on the discussion table this week. I've tried to stay out of it so far for two reasons. The first is that (here comes the full disclosure) I married into a family that's been making its modest fortune in the oil patches of the American West for over a century, so there's some personal interest at stake here. (The upside: I've got a box seat from which to report on at least some of the festivities.) The second is that as a futurist - trained in America's oil center, Houston, no less - I take a much longer and systemic view of the situation. And that view gives my thinking about our energy future a rather different shape and direction.

For weeks, pressure has been mounting in Congress to approve more domestic oil drilling, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has held the line, using her power to block a vote on offshore drilling.

Lawmakers sped for the exits Friday as Congress was to begin a five-week recess after a summer session noteworthy for bitter partisanship and paralysis on the issue topmost in the minds of many voters: the cost of gasoline.

Some of us wonder why some people we know worry little about the trend of sharply rising prices for food and petroleum. They may even acknowledge we have a huge population size and that the environment has been ravaged, but still the situation seems to them normal and stable. Theirs is a laid-back mindset common to those content to pay their bills, or perhaps they have given up on seeing fundamental societal change. They may be well-educated, liberal people. They are not usually the ones striving to change our culture toward respect for nature, although they are inclined to save the planet a bit and support social justice.

Although I'd be lying if I said I am certain of which direction the oil price is going, my gut feeling is telling me that it's going up as a general trend, despite brief respites. A few points have not been sufficiently made, and I think Rainer H.'s piece exhibits some of the problems those points would address.