Energy Policy

ODAC Newsletter – March 2

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Brent oil briefly touched $128/barrel on Thursday as pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme continued, the latest development being demands from Israel on the US to be more explicit in its threat of military action. The sharply rising prices are already impacting the weakened economies of Europe and the US making some wonder whether sanctions intended to hurt Iran could be backfiring…

Fracking bans that can stand

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In New York State, some 82 towns and counties have passed ordinances outlawing fracking, a natural gas drilling method known for causing severe water pollution. Another 35 have ordinances in the works. But until last week, no one knew quite what would happen when those ordinances were—inevitably—challenged by drilling companies.

Now, in a resounding win for activists, two different state Supreme Court justices have upheld fracking bans in two different New York towns.

A Fog of Mendacity

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Those frightening sounds, sights, and odors on the wind this foreboding snowless winter — like emanations from some back ward of a global psychiatric hospital — are the signs of a nation going completely mad. The traumatic rise of oil prices above the $100 level is one irritant, prompting a range of people-who-oughta-know-better to gibber and fulminate as though they’d been locked in the nation’s attic since Thanksgiving with nothing to do but play with a box of pencils. Meanwhile, several absurd “narratives” circulate around the mainstream media that are sure to cause this country more trouble — as any set of pernicious untruths will.

Rebuttal to the director of the US Geological Survey on peak oil

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On Feb. 6th, Dr. Marcia McNutt, Director of the US Geological Survey, delivered a lecture at IU entitled “US Energy Outlook: Whatever Happened to ‘Peak Oil?’” According to the press release announcing this talk, “Not so many years ago, the public heard much concern that the nation, and the globe, had or was about to reach the point of peak oil production and would be on a downward trajectory due to declining resources. The current fact is that despite growing demand for energy, fossil fuel resources have never been higher.”

The main problem with Dr. McNutt’s talk is that it was based on a critical evasion. “Peak oil” is not simply about the resource base – it’s about the flow rate of petroleum. More ominously, it suggests that officials in positions of national responsibility cannot or will not level with the public.

Gas prices set records, soon to reach new highs

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Mainstream media outlets throughout the country are now reporting on record-breaking gas prices, the highest ever for this time of the year. Also making the rounds is the commonly cited prediction by former Shell CEO John Hofmeisterthat there is a better than 50 percent chance that gas prices will reach $5 a gallon by this summer in the U.S. This is in spite of the fact that U.S. oil production is up and oil consumption down, since 2008. What the media isn’t reporting on is the rest of what Hofmeister said in a recent peak oil themed debate he had with Tad Patzek on Feb. 14.