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Monday, July 14, 2008
The “fuelishness” of offshore drilling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Oil is destined to become such a highly prized commodity that in time, we’ll probably end up drilling almost everywhere we can, desperately hoping to tap a final barrel or two. In that sense, today’s fight to open offshore areas to drilling is merely a fight over timing.
But let’s at least be honest and smart about it. Let’s at least have a basic understanding of what we can and cannot achieve by drilling offshore.
We’ve already debated the fact that any oil pumped from U.S. coastal areas would be sold on the world oil market, at world market prices. If oil is selling at $200 a barrel, that’s what U.S. consumers would pay for it. We’d get no price break, no hometown discount. Changing that system would be enormously difficult, because in effect it would require the United States to nationalize its oil industry. Exxon and Chevron aren’t exactly going to sit back and let that happen.
And then there’s nonsense like this:
Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, said that if the United States had opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling a decade ago as part of a comprehensive energy plan, “we wouldn’t be in this predicament today.”
“But now the chickens have come home to roost,” he said. “We can afford to wait no longer.”
There is no factual basis to that claim whatsoever. None. If we had drilled in ANWR 10 years ago, we would be in this exact same situation today and no reputable oil expert will tell you otherwise.
Energy experts at the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the U.S. government, made that very point in a report released in May. If we opened ANWR to drilling today, EIA concluded, production would peak 20 years from now and it would have no effect whatsoever on the price of oil in 2028 or our strategic situation.
It’s an issue of scale, with any additional production from offshore drilling doomed to be dwarfed by additional global consumption. Look at the numbers.
The United States already produces 8.3 million barrels a day, the third highest production total in the world, not that far behind #1 Saudi Arabia. So we’re not exactly pikers when it comes to drilling.
However, 8.3 million barrels a day isn’t nearly enough to slake our petro-thirst, because we consume 20.6 million barrels a day. That’s roughly one-fourth of total world oil production (and we’re one-twentieth of the world’s population).
Put another way, every day we Americans consume as much oil as is pumped from the United States, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and Canada combined.
So the idea that we can alter our strategic or economic situation by producing still more oil domestically is simply nonsense. It is foolishness sold by fools to other fools, and you can’t run your car on foolishness.
But boy if we could…
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Metro Atlanta populated by whiners
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Phil Gramm, a close friend of John McCain and an influential voice in drafting McCain’s economic plan, said last week that our economic situation isn’t all that bad, dismissing public sentiment to the contrary by explaining that we have all become a nation of whiners.
The Schapiro Group, a Georgia polling and consulting company, just released a poll on perceptions of the economy here in metro Atlanta. Here’s what they found:
“Metro Atlanta residents hold a pessimistic view of the U.S. economy, with over half (58%) rating current economic conditions nationally as ‘poor’ and another 33% saying ‘fair.’ At the same time, only 33% say that the economy of the greater metro Atlanta area is ‘poor’, with 45% giving it a ‘fair’ rating.
How would you rate the economic conditions in the country today?
Excellent 1%
Good 8%
Fair 33%
Poor 58%
How would you rate the economic conditions in the greater metro Atlanta area today?
Excellent 1%
Good 20%
Fair 45%
Poor 33%
Those who say the economy is struggling have a clear view of who is to blame: ‘the government.’ More metro area residents blame ‘the government’ than oil and gas prices, the collapse of the housing market, the war in Iraq, and corporate greed combined.
Who or what do you think is most responsible for the state of the economy today?
Our government 43%
Oil and gas prices 13%
Collapse of the housing market 8%
War in Iraq 7%
Corporate greed 8%
Individuals making bad choices with their money 12%
Something else 7%”
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President Bush balks on global warming
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In normal times, the fate of Planet Earth would not ride on a decision issued in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta. Decisions of such importance are supposed to be made in more lofty arenas, such as the White House or Congress.
However, because the decision-makers in Washington have forfeited their legal and moral responsibilities, a county judge hundreds of miles away has been forced to step into the vacuum to address global warming. And in a recent ruling by Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, the planet emerged victorious.
At least temporarily.
The case in question involves a large coal-burning power plant proposed for construction in rural Early County, along the Chattahoochee River. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups sued to block the plant, charging among other things that it would emit up to 9 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, a primary culprit in global climate change.
In most circles, there’s no longer any question that the planet is warming and that mankind is driving that change. Both Barack Obama and John McCain acknowledge the challenge and promise to address it. The National Intelligence Council, comprising the CIA and other agencies, reports that climate change could “seriously affect U.S. national security interests” in the next 20 years. “Logic suggests the conditions exacerbated [by climate change] would increase the pool of potential recruits for terrorism,” Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence, warned a House committee studying the issue.
Even President Bush grudgingly admits mankind’s role in climate change — the scientific evidence is too overwhelming to deny. But he nonetheless stubbornly declines to do anything serious to address the problem.
In fact, Bush and his administration continue to thumb their noses at a U.S. Supreme Court decision on global warming issued more than a year ago that required the government to take action or explain why.
The court noted that under the Clean Air Act, the federal government is required to regulate any pollutant that endangers the public’s health and welfare. It also noted the overwhelming evidence that CO2 endangers national security, the integrity of our coastlines and human health, among other things. Under the law, the administration had two choices: Explain why CO2 is not a danger, or start reducing CO2 emissions.
The administration has done neither. In fact, when the EPA sent the president its official report in December citing “compelling and robust” evidence that CO2 endangers human welfare, the White House refused to even open the e-mail.
In effect, that dereliction of duty dumped the problem into the lap of Judge Moore, who had to decide whether the coal-burning plant proposed by Longleaf Energy in Early County could be permitted without addressing the issue of CO2 emissions.
It couldn’t have been easy. On the one hand, it’s clear that CO2 contributes to global warming, and the Supreme Court had left little doubt that if CO2 hadn’t yet been officially designated a dangerous pollutant, it would be soon. Roughly a third of the nation’s current CO2 emissions come from existing coal-burning plants, and adding to that number would be irresponsible.
On the other hand, how could Georgia try to limit emissions of CO2 when no rules, regulations or emission limits had been set for the pollutant nationally or in other states? How could Longleaf be required to install hugely expensive technology that no other plant was required to use?
In the end, Moore courageously and perhaps a bit foolishly revoked the Longleaf permit, citing not just the CO2 issue but other problems as well. That ruling will be appealed, and it will be surprising if the CO2 portion of the ruling is upheld. At the moment it’s still a little bit ahead of the law.
In moral and practical terms, however, Moore’s ruling points in the direction we must inevitably head, and it’s time Congress and the next president follow her lead.
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