United States – Nov 21

November 21, 2007

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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage


The States of High Gas Prices

Eric de Place, Sightline
Last time I checked, oil prices were hovering just below $100 per barrel. This reminds me of something I used to obsess about: high oil prices hit some places harder than others.

All else being equal, oil-efficient economies are more insulated from oil price shocks than are economies that require large oil inputs to function. I’m not talking about the amount of oil consumption, but about the “oil-intensity” of an economy. New York state consumes a lot of oil and it also produces a lot of wealth. Other states, such as Louisiana, consume a lot of oil, but don’t produce anywhere near as much wealth per unit of energy. (In fact, New York produces five times as much wealth per barrel of oil as Louisiana.)

Just so, when oil prices skyrocket, Rhode Island suffers less pain than Texas. And Massachusetts feels less of a pinch than Wyoming. So at the risk of oversimplification, I’ll propose a little schema for the future:

  1. If the future is likely to bring high oil prices; and…

  2. We’d like to remain prosperous; then…
  3. We should probably start weaning our economies from petroleum.

Brilliant, I know.

I guess, one potential lesson here is that our big capital investments shouldn’t expose us to decades of oil price shocks. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, highway.) They should insulate us from high oil prices. (Oh, hi there, compact walkable neighborhood.)
(20 November 2007)


How $100 Oil Could Help

Moira Herbst, Business Week
Pricey crude hurts in all sorts of fiscal ways-but it could also spur crucial investment in alternative fuels

…doom and gloom is not the only upshot of $100 oil. In fact, many analysts see pricey oil as the jolt the economy needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions and foster more energy efficiency. That’s because as oil gets costlier, the incentives rise for new investments in energy efficiency and renewable options. Initiatives such as plug-in hybrid cars or cellulosic ethanol become more cost-competitive. Higher oil prices also ratchet up the pressure on Congress for new laws supporting renewable, cleaner energy sources on a larger scale.

“The top line point about expensive oil is that it gins up everyone’s desire to do something about it,” says Josh Dorner, a spokesman for the Sierra Club. “The task is to figure what [energy] policy works best for the environment and consumers alike, and to invigorate the search for alternatives.”

There is wide disagreement on which alternative energies would help meet demand as oil prices remain high. Advocates of corn ethanol say it’s cleaner than gasoline, and that more production can help revitalize the U.S. corn belt. But while the government has provided vigorous support of corn ethanol, it is losing ground in terms of public perception because of the fuel’s economic and environmental costs. More promising, experts say, is ethanol produced from sources like sugar cane and wood chips, which is more energy efficient and better overall for the environment. Other energy alternatives that stand to gain from oil’s price surge are plug-in hybrid vehicles, power co-generation (combined heat and power), and fuel cell technologies.

Which energies get support depends in part on how policy helps shape the marketplace. This summer both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed energy bills that include provisions like raising the renewable fuel standard and boosting energy efficiency. Dorner and others say those bills could win more favor in an era of $100 oil, especially as consumers are squeezed.

But experts warn against hasty and imprudent policies…
(21 November 2007)


Here’s why the U.S. is facing up to its thirst for oil

Neil Reynolds, Globe and Mail
In a massive new multivolume report on energy strategy in the United States, a high-powered federal task force puts “peak oil” into perspective. On the one hand, it says, the country has already consumed, in 150 years, 446 billion barrels of its own fossil-fuel endowment. On the other hand, it says, the country has 8.59 trillion barrels left – or more “oil equivalent” than the rest of the world combined. More than 95 per cent of America’s oil reserves, in other words, are still in the ground.

Canada enters this particular calculation in passing. “North American oil shale and [oil] sands alone far exceed all the remaining proven and undiscovered oil resources of the entire world,” the task force reports. “They represent 3.5 trillion barrels of oil resources. America’s commercial-quality oil shale resources alone exceed two trillion barrels. This shale can be processed to generate ultraclean, high-quality diesel and jet fuels, along with high-value chemicals – with existing technologies under normal economic conditions.”

Further, U.S. coal reserves exceed 260 billion tons – “250 years of supply at the existing production rate [for electricity] of 1.1 billion tons a year.” The task force says clean coal can be the largest and quickest single new source of oil in the U.S. – and that the conversion can be economic (producing a 15-per-cent return on investment) with world oil prices between $40 to $50 (U.S.) a barrel.

Mandated by the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, the 11-member Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force submitted its final report in September.
(22 November 2007)
William Tamblyn writes:
Can someone please tell these people they need to get in touch with Charles Hall’s EROI Institute? tinyurl.com/2jqh9s

“Hall’s latest research shows the EROI of existing oil and gas is about 25 to one, but that NEW oil is approaching 1 to 1 . . .” tinyurl.com/2j4l4j

Imagine what shale oil is! Oh, and about all that coal… that too must take both EROI and the Hubbert Curve into account.


Four Ways to Solve the Energy Crisis

Tim Heffernan, Esquire
Which also happen to be four reasons why Gal Luft is the most hated man in Riyadh, Detroit, and Des Moines.

… Energy-independence advocate Gal Luft looks for winners. The former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces and counterterrorism expert fervently believes that the only way to make America safe is to make it energy independent. And so as executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and cofounder of the Set America Free Coalition, he has set out to do just that.

Luft advises Congress and security companies. He briefs industrial and environmental groups. Yet what separates him from other energy specialists are his pragmatic solutions. He doesn’t peddle pie-in-the-sky political strategies. He’s a realist. He has a single goal: freeing America from the grip of foreign oil. And he wants to do it now. At right are four steps he says we can — and should — take today.

1. Make gasoline-only cars illegal …
2. Kill the Iowa caucuses …
3. Think of the world in terms of sugarcane
4. Revolutionize waste
(20 November 2007)
Dr. Gal Luft is “executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) a Washington based think tank focused on energy security.”

As you can see from his suggestions, Dr. Luft is preoccupied with maintaining the U.S. car fleet. Most people with a background in ecology do not see how biofuels could be produced at high enough levels to power the world’s growing car habit. Soils become depleted and we will face REAL conflicts about fuel vs food. -BA


Northeast Cap-and-Trade Could Be Climate Model or US, NY Gov Says

NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Energy Policy TV
Washington, DC – Elliot Spitzer, Governor, State of New
York; Chaired by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA)

Spitzer testifies before members of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on what his state is doing to cut global warming emissions and promote increased use of clean renewable energy. Congress is currently considering an energy bill that would promote cleaner energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Related content found at: globalwarming.house.gov/pubs/?id=0023
(20 November 2007)
The site has other energy-related coverage of American politicians.


Tags: Biofuels, Energy Policy, Renewable Energy