United States Energy Security Council----Missionary's Position

 I took the opportunity to watch an entire round table discussion from the US Energy Security Council---all 1 hr and 47 minutes ( http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PolicyRound ). It was loaded with big shots from all over the place, and I mean all over the place. While the discussion was very interesting, and I will admit to hearing new ideas, it left me befuddled to say the least.

The idea of the council was to find a way to produce a fuel that would take us off petroleum and on to new fuels that were cheaper, and less important, cleaner. I will admit that if we want to keep business as usual, then we will have to find a way to drive without using the expensive depleting, and very foreign (8 million b/day),  oil supply. Of course, the BAU thing is suspect all by itself---in this very finite world---but then they are only interested in the most immediate time frame and not the lives of our grandchildren.

So they went to great discussion on what the new fuels might be. Well, that is where the befuddlement came in. First off, they made the wild-ass assumption that oil was the price it is because of OPEC which is the damnedest thing I have ever heard. It is expensive because all the cheap oil is running out and the marginal producers (deep water, sands, fracking)  set the price. So if 10 million barrels a day are from wells where it cost $80 to produce it, then the world price is over $80---and that will be for ALL oil. Why would Saudi Arabia sell it for $5. It is a free market. We could refuse to buy it and they would say fine---run out then because there is no one else to sell it to you. SA is just capitalizing on their position---supply and demand. Jesus Christ. I got the feeling that McFarland really feels pissed our oil is under their sand.

They insist that we should have choices like methanol made from natural gas because it can be done and natural gas is cheap. All well and good and  seems to make sense---and it will be done to some extent. But methanol still gives off CO2! It only has 65% of the energy per unit volume of gasoline. Then they go on and on how abundant fracked natural gas is when independent annalist (Art Berman and others) are saying that the wells deplete by 80% in 2 years and the estimates being tossed out are all hyped up to increase the value of the companies stock (Devon,  Chesapeake). There is some indication the Bakken play has already peaked---and sure as hell is running into the Red Queen Affect.

To top it off they insist that this gas will remain cheap when it was just announced that virtually every major player in the gas industry is loosing big time money, and lots of it. The price has to go up. If that is the case, it may not compete with gasoline just like the god-damned ethanol scam.

Some one also mentioned that per capita gas consumption is going down, which it may be. Did they mention that it might be due to the recession and loss of our industry?. Did they mention that per capita may be down but the population last year in the USA went up at least 2.5 million? That means the over all consumption may well still be going up.

Oh ya, electric cars. Another great idea. They talked as if the electricity came out of somebody's ass. It comes form coal 45%, nat gas 30% and Nucs 20%. Is that progress?

It is hard to imagine that a group like this could have a discussion and never mention once these issues. It is just blah, blah, blah, cornucopian, techno-triumphalist babble. For god's sake man go after growth.