Here is the whole thing for anyone interested and its in pdf of course.

National Energy Policy

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 21, 2001

Answers

PNS > Content > 2001 | Pre 2001 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- PNS Daily Wire

NCM TV:New California Media -- The New America Now

Feeding the Insatiable Monster - The Energy Policies of the Bush Administration PNS, May 18, 2001 By Michael T. Klare

All proposals on energy from the Bush Administration share the idea of increasing supply. This is not only unrealistic, but will entail costs we can never pay. PNS commentator Michael T. Klare, professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, is author of Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict.

All the Bush administration proposals for meeting the nation's rising energy needs have just one thought in mind -- to increase the amount of oil, gas, and electricity available to the public.

Many people in California and other energy-deficient states may applaud this approach, but all Americans will suffer if U.S. leaders put all their efforts into expanding supply, rather than curbing demand.

Every year, the United States consumes more energy than it did the year before. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, total energy consumption will grow by one-third between 2000 and 2020.

Much of it will go for automobile and truck use; another large portion will power the Internet and other computer-driven systems. During the 1990s, when energy was relatively cheap, Americans got used to bigger, less fuel-efficient vehicles, and filling their homes with electronic devices.

Now the administration is telling us that we can continue to increase consumption. "Leave the rest to us," they say, "we'll make sure that adequate supplies will be available when you need them."

Americans should be deeply suspicious of such talk. We would like more cheap energy, but we also know when to resist the claims of snake-oil peddlers.

Even with a massive effort--on the level of the national mobilization during World War II--it is doubtful that we could do what the administration proposes: construct 1,900 new electrical power plants over the next 20 years, along with dozens (hundreds?) of new oil refineries and 38,000 miles of natural gas pipelines.

Not only will this cost trillions of dollars --from sources yet to be identified--but it will also require overturning land-use restrictions in thousands of towns, cities, counties, and other jurisdictions.

But this is not just a matter of practical impediments -- many such obstacles can be removed. We must also calculate the harmful aspects of the administration's plan.

These include:

- Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Despite President Bush's reassurances, there is considerable evidence that this would do irremediable harm to a pristine wilderness and threaten endangered species.

- Increased use of coal.

True, coal is relatively cheap and abundant, but it releases far more carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels when burned, thus accelerating the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

The technology to filter out these gases exists, but remains costly. And coal is not a practical fuel for trucks and automobiles--although we could go back to using it to power locomotives.

- New nuclear reactors.

Nuclear reactors release no carbon dioxide, but they do produce highly-toxic radioactive wastes that must be stored safely and there are still unanswered questions about the adequacy of existing storage procedures.

- Additional natural gas pipelines.

Although considered relatively safe, natural gas pipelines do pose enough risk of explosion to make many communities reluctant to allow them to traverse their territory. One possible solution is to locate them on the seabed (as with a proposed Texas-to-Florida system), but this is costly and entails environmental risks of its own.

Obviously, the administration's approach is dangerously misleading. We can, of course, increase the supply of energy. But we cannot achieve all of the increases contemplated by the White House without experiencing considerable harm.

Our energy policy must, therefore, emphasize reducing demand as much as expanding supply. Fortunately, there are practical ways to limit demand.

Most important, we must raise the fuel efficiency of automobiles and trucks--especially the SUVs that now constitute such a large share of the nation's automobile fleet. This must be an urgent national priority.

We can also mandate further increases in the energy efficiency of computers, appliances, light fixtures, and other electrical devices. Increased investment is also needed in solar, wind, and biomass energy systems.

We have two choices.

We can endorse the administration's approach, and view demand for energy as an insatiable monster that must be satisfied at any cost, or we can choose an alternative strategy, aimed at taming the beast.

The former has its undeniable attractions, but we will be doing ourselves a terrible injustice if we fail to choose the latter.

http://www.pacificnews.org/content/pns/2001/may/0518feeding.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 21, 2001.

Yes, we have no energy crisis

Andrew Coyne National Post America today consumes far more bananas than it produces. If trends persist, by 2020 the United States will be almost wholly dependent on foreign sources of bananas. The implications for America's banana security are ominous. What is needed is a comprehensive national banana policy, if this looming banana crisis is to be averted ...

If that strikes you as a silly idea, consider that the President of the United States has just proposed much the same policy. Only because it is about energy, rather than bananas, everyone nods their heads. I refer to the report of President Bush's National Energy Policy development group: proof, if any were needed, that right- wingers can be just as economically illiterate as the direst leftie.

"America in the year 2001 faces the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargoes of the 1970s," the report announces, urging that "the complacency of the past decade must now give way to swift, but well-considered action." As always, however, There Are No Easy Answers. "Our energy crisis has been years in the making, and will take years to put behind us."

Actually, the "crisis" has been about three months in the making: The development group only began preparing its report in February. Which is to say, there is no energy crisis, outside the report's imagining. No action is required to avert it -- other than, perhaps, a National Complacency Policy.

Begin with those charts projecting energy supply and demand out to 2020, the latter outstripping the former by an ever-widening margin. If there is one thing we ought to have learned by now, it is that such projections are worth about as much as, well, as $100 barrels of oil. The demand for energy is not a fixed quotient of population or GDP: Like the supply, it is a function of prices. The report itself cites figures showing how energy consumption per dollar of GDP fell after the oil price spikes of the 1970s. Without knowing the future price of oil or electricity -- and nobody does -- there is simply no way of predicting the demand for either.

But supposing the charts are right. What of it? These do not imply that consumption would exceed production in any absolute sense, which is a logical impossibility, but only production from domestic sources. The gap between the two lines on the chart is made up from imported oil and gas -- or as it is commonly put, "increased import dependence."

That word, dependence, suggests something imprudent, even unmanly. But what, precisely, is the concern? Here it is best to distinguish between the two different energy markets: oil and gas, such as you might burn in your car or home, and electricity. Though the report treats them as if they were one, the problems confronting them are quite distinct. There are shortages of electricity in some states, notably California; but the only "crisis" facing U.S. drivers is the dread prospect of US$3-a-gallon gasoline, or about what most Europeans pay today.

There are two, closely related reasons for this discrepancy. One, the retail price of electricity under California's curious notion of "deregulation" remained fixed, allowing demand in the fast-growing state to rise unchecked even as it discouraged new supply. Prices of oil and gas, by contrast, are free to rise or fall in line with market conditions, and thus to bring supply and demand into equilibrium.

And two, oil and gas, unlike electricity, are produced and distributed for a world market. While it is difficult to import electricity from other countries (or even from other states: the report's call for increasing capacity on interstate transmission lines is, er, well-grounded), this is not true of oil and gas.

So what's the big deal about import dependence? Is it a matter of security of supply? The report decries the United States' increased dependence on "foreign powers that do not always have America's interests at heart." But oil is oil: If one country, or group of countries, cuts supply, the shortfall can always be made up elsewhere.

True, a really drastic cut in supply can lead to a rise in prices, at least in the short term. But it's not dependence on imports that exposes a country to price shocks: It's exports. You could import no oil at all, produce all you consume, but if the world price rises, so must yours -- or watch domestic producers divert supply offshore.

In any event, the report's proposed alternative to import dependence, increased domestic production, would make little difference in this regard. The United States produces only a fraction of the world's oil. Even a large rise in its own production would do little to alter the relative state of supply and demand worldwide.

Probably domestic oil producers do face some unneeded regulatory barriers. Likewise, concerns about electricity shortages are real, as isolated, short-term and policy-induced as these may be. But whatever measures are adopted on either front, they should be considered on their merits, and with due regard to competing concerns, notably the environment, without appealing to an illusory energy crisis for justification.

On this score, the report is, frankly, bananas.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 21, 2001.