There is no national energy policy because there is no public will for one. Sure, blame Congress or President Bush or the oil companies, but we are the problem. We, meaning you, me and others. Part of the reason for our relative insouciance is that life remains okay.
For example, European gasoline prices can be almost triple ours. France is just below $10/gallon, Norway just above and Germany is already up to $11.50. As would be expected, protests are growing. Soon, there could be major demonstrations, if not uncontrolled rioting. You can, of course, move to Venezuela. Simple Solutions for Planet Earth listed gasoline at 12 cents / gallon last year. Today, gasoline still costs 12 cents / gallon there. But do you really want to relocate to that part of the world just for gasoline?
By the way, ten years ago, the price of crude oil was $11.91/barrel, less than one-tenth the cost today. Has something monumental occurred? Ah... yes, although my response should have been more hysterical.
When you come down to it, we have our priorities all wrong, and do nothing about righting this nonsense. For example, each NASA space shot is said to cost about a billion dollars. This is more than the annual Department of Energy renewable energy budget.
Each B-2 Stealth bomber sells for one billion dollars... no, make that $2 billion, including all development costs. A B-2 weighs 2.3 million troy ounces, which, if made of pure gold, would then have a value of, yes, about $2 billion. Of course, it won't fly, but want more?
The U.S. Navy will outlay $160 million/year to man each Nimitz class aircraft carrier, and when the George Bush is christened (no joke, but named for POTUS #41, H.W.) this year, there will be ten of them. The President George W. Bush solar energy budget request is about half what it will cost to operate one nuclear carrier! And we have ten of them... with no major enemy today, and none clearly on the horizon for the next generation or more.
The American public readily accepts this absurdity. Where are the priorities? What can you do about this? You can start by reading those two Simple Solutions books.
The world needs to spend not billions, but trillions, of dollars over the next few years to minimize the crunch of Peak Oil and Global Warming (PO/GW). Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has a new book entitled, The Three Trillion Dollar War, reporting on the true cost of the Middle East war. The PO/GW 10% solution recommended to POTUS #44 in my May 29th post only provided the global federal government investment. Most of the actual outlay will need to come from industry. But, without the force of law or appropriate spur from government, we have seen that corporations are loath to move into unexplored investment areas, as, for example, sustainable resources, or the remediation of global warming.
So with crude oil settling in the range of $126/barrel (which is exactly $3/gallon), are we now, finally, soon to get a national energy policy? No. Two presidential candidates (John McCain and Hillary Clinton) have actually proposed eliminating the 18.4¢/gallon (24.4¢/gal for diesel) tax during the three summer months to win some votes. Barack Obama said it was a gimmick and Thomas Friedman of The New York Times entitled his editorial: "Dumb as We Wanna Be." Friedman said, in reference to McCain and Clinton, "the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away."
What's the reality? First of all, if this tax is dropped for the summer, the consumer would be saving 5% -- 5% -- on their gas bill. This should be a non-issue! Gasoline increases this amount each week, sometimes, if not more.
How much money are we talking about? Actually, something in the range of $10 billion. Wow, that's a lot. The U.S. Department of Energy spent less than this amount for renewable energy R&D,cumulative, over the past decade.
Well, Exxon, during this past quarter, made a profit of $10.9 billion, which Wall Street found disappointing. Chevron's profits only amounted to $5.2 billion, the second best quarter in their 132 year history. (How long has oil been around, anyway? Well Chevron first struck oil in California in 1876. Drake drilled for his Pennsylvania petroleum in 1859.) Remember, these profits are only for January, February and March of 2008.
Cutting the gas tax is going in the wrong direction. We need to add a dollar/gallon and apply this revenue to developing sustainable options. That would provide about $150 billion each year, which would be just the complement to the 10% solution suggested in my "Well, Barack, We Have A Problem..." National energy policy? Why bother? A dollar/gallon investment tax on gasoline, the 10% solution and a 10 cents / pound carbon dioxide tax are all we need. Carbon tax? Stay tuned.
Patrick Takahashi is a retired professor of engineering and director emeritus of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii. He helped draft original legislation on hydrogen, ocean energy and wind power when he worked for the U.S. Senate more than a quarter century ago.
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Those cars consume 30% to 35% less oil than gasoline engine powered cars.
Modern Diesel cars are even clean and comply with the emission regulation
in Europe the market share for Diesel cars is about 50%.
What is the roadblock here and why is Diesel more expensive than gasoline?
What was I thinking? In my two HuffPo blogs over the past week, I suggested a trivial trillion dollar program to combat Peak Oil and Global Warming. In one of them, I provide a clue to presidenti
Oh, oil hit a record high today of $138/barre
The Republican
http://www
Funny, he never once told what the acronym stood for, never even mentioned the word Alaska, only that it has enough oil to drive our current number of cars for four years. Great, 4 years. So we ruin an ecosystyem to drive our inefficien
Joke if you will, but 20 years from now we will be kicking ourselves for not electing Gore.
Carter, the butt of many a joke for his solar panels and thermostat controls. Now who looks ridiculous
Maybe one of you reading this comment might have a direct link to the Obama campaign. Bring this May 29, 2008 blog to their attention. Please.
I do not accept, Mr Takahashi, that the failure for an effective and sane energy policy lies with the citizens. It is true that it becomes our responsibi
The blame is with them.
But it IS now our duty to hold them accountabl
Another part of the Cheney, et al, energy policy is to blame high food prices on methanol production so that we begin to doubt the supporting of alternativ
johnlocke2
By the way, The Huffington Post could well be a crucial part of the process, as there can now be immediate feedback, leading, I hope, to a groundswel
Aloha.
Same reason there's next to no multi-moda
None of the above puts maximum dollars in multi-nati
Until we do some serious muckraking and trust-bust
By the way, speaking of personal solutions, my three part national energy policy is redundant. Delete the $1/gallon gasoline tax, for the 10 cents / pound carbon dioxide tax automatica
You're doing something about it right now, helping spark discussion
I've thought about this a long time (like, 7+ years) , and have come to the conclusion that the single most important, underlying change we need to make, that is a root cause (at least short-term
Of course, at this point, lopsided is an understate
So, it's serious, sweeping campaign finance reform. Now. Cut the heart out of the beast, and the brain and body and claws and fangs all die.
Then, efforts to have an energy policy, an environmen
The real question is, can we achieve that simply via casting our votes for "change"? Is voting enough?
Our American lifestyle is built around the notion of cushioning us from all problems that might bother a majority. That's why it is always those most in need who end up getting the short end of the stick. When a majority of people are "the most in need," we have a problem.
The most obvious cushions are the mass media and their talented liars (opps, sorry, I mean) actors. Education is not cool. Fake gun play by actors is cool.
But the biggest cushion ever thrown at us has been the way Bush has run the invasion of Iraq. No draft. No taxes. No sacrifices
The proposal for a gasoline tax reminds that time after time, whenever that tax was on the ballot, the oil barons would crank up the printing press and hire the actors to tell us how the addition of 10 cents to develop alternativ
a pencil and write to congress. Force them to change our laws and forbid lobbyists. Lobbyists
have money and money talks. It is the root of all evil.
You think high prices are the sole fault of lobbyists?
So....Obam
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were pumping every gallon they could to help pay for the 1991 Gulf War and were actually grateful and cooperativ
Mexico had a currency crisis in the 1990's. This cheapened their oil. Mexico has been throwing away it's oil money for years instead of putting needed funds into it's oil infrastruc
American SUV's.
Comparing the price of oil in the 1990's to today's prices is pretty simplistic
I blame Bush for taking the boogeyman away from the Middle East. Sadamn terrified the Saudi's and the Iranians. Both countries sold all of the oil they could to pay for new weapons. The Saudi's relied on our good will to keep Sadamn in check (ditto for Kuwait).
I also blame the Dems for refusing to allow more drilling in the US when demand increases. Idiots.
We need to increase supply while looking for alternativ
We have viable alternativ
Your problem is you have to explain why it is idiotic to drill American oil and sell it in 2000 for $25 a barrel when you could wait 8 years and get $125 a barrel.
Now let's see, based on Anwar production of :
1 million barrels a day at an additional $100 per barrel = $100 M per day or
$36,500,00
And 1 million barrels a day would not dent the price of oil considerin
I'm not against some increased drilling for oil but I'd worry about a strategy that just pumps all the remaining oil in America to make the Hummer owners happy for 10-20 years. what do we do when it's all gone?
Is oil the only way to produce energy? The conservati
The Bush family loves taking their mid east friends for rides in their golf carts. ("Hey, look, we don't really need your oil, but we're in the same business right? Heh, heh)
There is oil off of the coast of CA and there is more in the Gulf Of Mexico.
We do not have to produce enough oil to be self sufficient but we can help ease the supply problem.
We were not self sufficient during Bush (41's) term in office and Clinton left us using about 60% foriegn oil. It is doubtful we will ever be free from importing oil but when you increase supply the price comes down.
I can also talk about national security since a large part of our oil comes from people that hate us. It takes about 10 years to get an oil field producing so it would be good to have that capacity should the tap ever be turned off again.
1. The projected oil reserves in the ANWR are a drop in the bucket and come nowhere close to making us energy independen
2. Unrestrain
3, Petroleum is a finite fuel source. "Digging new holes" is not the answer.
4. Petroleum is valuable in a variety of products: plastics, fertilizer
5. Continual sucking at the teat of Big Oil tends to make us complacent about the need to search for alternate energy sources. For example, you want true energy independen
Instead of dutifully parroting rightwing objections
1. We don't have to be self sufficient in oil. We do have to increase the supply somewhat to control prices. Then there is the national security issue. We are now hostage to world oil prices and Opec controls that price at their leisure. Most Middle Eastern countries do not produce beef, wheat or Dell Computers. They export oil. There is a limit to how long they can turn off the tap and still pay off their own people and radical Mullahs.
2. So since oil is a finite fuel source we should just leave ours in the ground while there are shortages.
3. Since we need alternativ
4. ANWR is not the only place in America where there is oil. It sounds nice to pretend that is the sole source but that's misinforma
1. There was a gentleman in Atlanta who was skilled in the cryogenics field. As an aside, he rebuilt an engine in an old car, and altered the molecular structure of the moving parts in the car by cryogenica
2. The man in the Sarasota/B
Those are but two instances. There are supposedly many more, but unless we investigat
With regards to the lack of a national energy policy, one day after my posting, there were more than 50 responses. Let me assess the input:
1. Most still blame decision-m
2. Many think the problem can't be solved.
3. There is a hodge-podg
There has got to be a better solution, and I'll try again.
P.S. I'm participat
Tax gasoline @ $2.00 per gallon; SEQUSETERI
QED
It is amazing me too, how we can be shipping $3 per gallon overseas and the Republican administra
Here is a link to the carbontax.
www.carbon
Regards,
I have always been in favor of modestly higher gas prices via a tax because I think we always wasted too much gas.
However, America, and the planet by extention, has always found the best solutions through technology
Lastly we need to use new math and realize that government subsidies for solar, wind, etc., actually retun money to the economy as a whole. When the state subsidizes your hybrid, it means we import less oil which means the dollar gets stronger and you take that stronger dollar to Wal Mart and take more goods home. A corporatio
lastly, none of this has any meaning if China continues its dirity coal fired utility expansion and right now they have no intention of stopping.
12 trillion pounds is a lot of carbon dioxide! At a nickel a pound(100 per ton of C02) would bring in $600 billion. Flat rebate of just half of this, direct to bank accounts of 130 million households
However we do have a $500 billion per year deficit. Seems like we may have to go higher than a nickel per pound of carbon dioxide(10 cents?) if we are going to maintain a flat rebate and have any hope of balancing the budget.
We already have adopted battery packs for power tools en masse - they are very popular - a car/truck is just another tool waiting to be refit for use with batteries.
A national power grid supplied by many different methods of energy production
Net metering & for anyone who wants to set up their own small scale solar and wind electrical generation capability on their property - why not?
If enough people started reducing the amount of grid power they consume by generating some of their own it would benefit everyone - not just the person who gets to see their utility bills plummet.
Encourage the adoption of Geothermal heat pumps for new homes & commercial buildings + effective insulation = lower energy requiremen
There are ways to get out of the fossil fuel insanity death spiral and it doesn't mean you have to grow a beard and start wearing sandals - you just have to use your brain and find the solutions that make financial sense - and stop listening to idiots who pretend either that the problem cant be solved/doe
one that costs $ 24,000. At my age, it is not feasible to make it economical
come down somehow. Plus, the inventors of such things over the past have been surpressed
by the government for the very reason of making money, like hedge funds!
I live in Florida and the first thing builders do when they build is cut down all the trees because from their point of view it will make the building cheaper to build. Unfortunat
there is no building standard in Florida which limits contractor