It will come as a shock to most Americans, but no presidential candidate -- nor any candidate, nor any local, state or federal government -- has developed a contingency plan in the event of a protracted oil cut-off. It is not even being discussed. Government has prepared for hurricanes, anthrax, terrorism, and every other disaster, but not the one threatened daily -- a protracted oil stoppage, whether caused by terrorism or Iranian intervention in the Persian Gulf.
It is like seeing a hurricane developing without a disaster plan or evacuation route. Our allies have oil shortage interruption contingency plans, but America does not.
The crude realities: America uses approximately 19 to 20 million barrels of oil per day, almost 70 percent of which is imported. If we lose just 1 million barrels per day, or suffer the type of damage sustained from Hurricane Katrina, the government will open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which offers a mere 6 to 8 week supply of unrefined crude oil. If we lose 1.5 million barrels per day, or approximately 7.5 percent, we will ask our allies in the 28-member International Energy Agency to open their SPRs and otherwise assist. If we lose 2 million barrels per day, or ten percent for a protracted period of time, government crisis monitors say the chaos will be so catastrophic they cannot even model it. One government oil crisis source told me hours ago, "We cannot put a price tag on it. If it happens, just cash in your 401k."
Exactly how could America be subjected to a protracted oil interruption, that is, a 10 percent shortfall lasting longer than several weeks? It will not come from hurricane action in the Gulf of Mexico, or even major refinery accidents or other oil infrastructure damage. Such damage would be repaired within days and the temporary losses absorbed by the small half million barrel per day global cushion available.
However, if one, two, or all of three of these vital chokepoints are hit by terrorists flying hijacked jumbo jets or shut down by Iranian military action -- the Abqaiq processing plant in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Ras Tanura terminal on Saudi Arabian coast, or the two-mile per sea lane Strait of Hormuz -- as much as 40 percent of all seaborne oil will be stopped, as much as 18 percent of all global supply will be interrupted, and as much as 20 percent of the U.S. supply will be cut off. Estimates on the U.S. shortfall could be even higher. Repeat attacks could prolong the crisis for many months, which is exactly what Al Qaeda and the Iranian regime have promised. Yet there is no government plan.
The best experts predict that if we suffer as much as a ten percent shortfall for any period of time, let alone twenty percent, it will be a neighbor-against-neighbor "Mad Max scenario" as food shortages swell and a storm of economic collapse surges across the country. Indeed, experts have been warning about this looming calamity for years. But the government and presidential candidates refuse to even consider the possibility or develop a contingency plan. Even if a secret plan exists, who would execute such a monumental undertaking?
Yet American allies have developed oil contingency legislation and other administrative plans that will permit their nations to survive a stoppage. These measures include severe vehicle traffic reductions, enabling fast alternative fuel production, mass vehicle fuel retrofitting, as well as rush public transit enhancement and mandated changes in driving habits. Unquestionably, for America to survive such a catastrophe will require a very painful, multi-layered program of immediate-term, short-term, mid-term and long-term fixes that will change our society and transform it off oil. The nation has no real alternative fuel delivery or retrofitting infrastructure. Lawmakers, mayors, governors and candidates have not developed such a plan during the half decade the interruption has been looming.
The notion that Saudi Arabia can make up the shortfall from an Iranian disruption is impossible. Saudi oil disembarks from Ras Tanura and it, too, must pass through the narrow two-mile wide sea lanes of the Strait. For America to have prepared intelligently for a Persian Gulf oil interruption would have required a decade of planning. To absorb the hit from a sudden oil stoppage as is now once again threatened, will be very painful indeed.
Edwin Black is the New York Times best selling investigative author of 'IBM and the Holocaust,' 'Internal Combustion,' 'British Petroleum and the Redline Agreement,' and 'The Plan: How to Save America When the Oil Stops -- or the Day Before' (Dialog Press), from which this article is adapted. More information about The Plan can be found at www.planforoilcrisis.com.
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AMajid
Who has been agitating for change to that policy for the past twenty five years? Dick Cheney. Bush 43? Sarah Palin? Exxon? BP? Haliburton? Schlumberger?
These people represent the left and the environmental lobby to you?
I think this is just a manufactured ballyhoo by big oil to scare the people into building a pipeline. Wouldn't doubt one bit if it was already promised, waiting to "be sold to the people" via the threat journal.
The Iranians could shut the Straits of Hormuz down with ease, and at will. They have the missiles (that are plenty accurate for the job) and the U.S. has no effective way of stopping them.
The economic fallout from the spike in oil prices would be beyond anything that most living Americans have ever experienced in this country. Our economy runs on cheap oil, and it is not in any manner capable of adjusting to the loss of two million barrels per day. What such a scenario would have on the world economy is even worse. All you need to know is that you won't have the time for bluster and sabre-rattling when you're standing in a bread line.
What most people here don't seem to understand is that if Iran wanted to cripple us they wouldn't need the Bomb to do it...
You understand then that the West's persistent attempts to destroy Iran's economy (and government) should be seen as no less than acts of war by Iran's people. Ergo, Iran is in a state of war with the West right now, and owes us nothing.
The only ones bluffing right now are us.
Enjoy those coming cold showers. And marvel at spiking interest rates, an increasingly moribund economy, mass layoffs, huge increases in fuel and food prices, a world recession that will last ten years, and civil war in the Middle East for a generation (our precious despots in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait will all be relocating to the Hamptons).
Those fun facts should serve as a real wake up call for so many sleep-walking Americans, but like they say, you just cannot fix stupid...
p.s. the risk of setting the Shiite world on fire in the Middle East should never be seen as an empty threat. Israel had its hands full with Hezbollah a few years back, and effectively lost that conflict. Think of one ten times bigger than that...
So, Iran needs to give us room to save face otherwise it's going to be a game of chicken.
Edwin Black is spot on except he actually minimizes the problem a lot.
For example, over 60% of Americans live in Urban areas with no ability to produce their own food, therefore almost all of the food consumed by that 60%+ MUST be transported on trucks and trains powered by diesel fuel. When the cost of diesel gets too high, over half the population of the US will start to starve (one of the reason I am moving to a rural farm area so I can still eat after the diesel stops flowing).
If the US had listened to Carter and spent the time and wealth to get completely off oil over the last 40 years, the US would not be in this position. Unfortunately Americans NEVER do anything about their future, until the problems get to the super-critical stage.
There is of course another even simpler and much, much cheaper solution to this oil crises and that is to stop the aggression against Iran. Stop threatening it. Stop saying you will wipe it off the map. Bring Israel to heel and tell them that if they attack Iran that all bets are off, beginning with the three billion a year they recieve in Us Military aid. In other words live and let live. Stop interfereing in thier country. If they like being ruled by Mullahs that is their perogative. After all the US Government in it's present form is nothing to write home about either.
As we have seen repeatedly, when we attack the natives, the oil stays in the ground until the natives are happy.
A real glaring example is the gas line from Egypt to Israel has been blown up over ten times so far because many Egyptians are not happy that Israel is getting any gas. This is not even in a war zone, can you imagine what happens to oil infrastructure in a war zone?
I haven't considered the possibility that it would employ paramilitary forces to attack production facilities in other nations.
1) Neutralize Iranian Radar and Command & Control sites
2) Neutralize Iranian Air Force units/bases.
3) Neutralize Iranian Naval Units/Bases.
4) Neutralize Iranian Surface to Surface missile sites.
5) Neutralize Iranian Artillery sites.
6) DESTROY Iranian nuclear sites.
7) BLOCK Iranian oil exports
So if the Iranians want to cast the first stone, the US/Saudi/Gulf States/Israel will most certainly cast the LAST stone.
You have no clue as to what resources Iran has that would make your scenario close to impossible and very deadly for the Americans that tried..
Iran has been preparing for a US attack and invasion for 30+ years so they have lots of very deadly surprises for Americans that are foolish enough to try.
It surprises me no end to still see Americans who still believe in the face of three lost wars and a stalemate (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afganistan that the American Military is still invincible. Even in tiny Grenada the American Military was pinned down for more than three weeks at the airfield by a couple of Hundred Cuban labourers that sniped at them from the hills. So grow up, read something other than the propaganda put out by the Military Industrial Complex and the politicians that are bought and paid by it. Remember the Iraq War was supposed to be over in three weeks and cost 50 billion. Three trillion down the road, 300, 000 wounded and 4787 dead and ten years and it is still not close to being over.
The issue is Iran blocking shipping...not us invading and installing democracy.
Your buddy Jimmy Carter is the one who said loud and clear that the US would use force to keep oil flowing.
The above is a rather simple list of what would need to be done to keep the Strait open.
Open your history books or use Google and take a look at the Iran/Iraq war where the US Navy and other provided escorts to keep the Strait and Gulf open for oil exports.
Frankly, I hope Iran tries something....good excuse to do what needs to be done TO THEM.
And even if this were to happen 150 million + people would not starve either; though it almost sounds like you wouldn't mind the idea....
First there would be no cleanup or nation building in Iran (I would hope); second, Iran's military would fair little better than Iraq's (see Gulf War I and II); third, of course it is a can of worms best left unopened, but if they try and cut off the worlds oil supply then they are the ones opening it and we would respond in kind.
I am not dreaming. I am not advocating for war. I am saying that Iran dose not have the military capability to threaten us in the way this article suggests they do.
Utter nonsense. What do you think the Pentagon and State Department do all day? I guarantee that a multitude of plans exist at the Defense Department and State Department. Most probably involve crushing Iran with Nato support.
"These measures include severe vehicle traffic reductions, enabling fast alternative fuel production, mass vehicle fuel retrofitting, as well as rush public transit enhancement and mandated changes in driving habits."
Yes I'm sure that Europe as it is melting down is ready to switch over to biofuels (which require massive amounts of oil). Car loving Germans will all ride the train. The world runs on oil; no amount of "planning" by government is going to change that reality.
Does Edwin Black even read these articles before he submits them? Obviously he is trying to scare gullible readers hoping that they buy his book. Which he wrote in 2008 when $150 a barrel oil was enough to move copies of his book. Now scare mongering from Iran will help him move copies (he hopes).
In the mean time where will you get food?
They know better than anyone that if any of their ships dares blockade that strait, it will be sunk faster than you can say lead balloon by a US action group ship.
And that's assuming of course that the Chinese don't sink it first.
China gets and needs more oil from the region than even the US.
Worst of all is the fact that the Iranians have no allies on this in the region and would probably see the rest of the Arab league endorse such an action if it meant curtailing a possible wider spread war.
But your larger point is correct though; the US needs a long-term contingency plan.
Which is why the people who are protesting the Keystone pipeline are puzzling. I'm not the biggest fan of fossil fuel usage but while it's going to take a long long time for the US to shift most of their energy usage capability away from oil and fossil fuel, if it's going to get it's oil from anywhere then shouldn't it be from friendly countries with strategically friendlier locales?