Bush uses deceit in energy message

President wrongly implies his legislation means the US will be able to forgo foreign oil; nuke proposals come on strong


Should the oil in a conquered country or client state be called ``foreign''? Foreign dependence will end only if the oil-containing countries all become property of the United States.

President Bush took care to separate bad ``foreign'' sources from good American ones in his energy speech today at the Washington Hilton Hotel. He linked current high fuel prices to ``a foreign tax on the American people.'' Then he said,

The problem is clear. This problem did not develop overnight, and it's not going to be fixed overnight. But it's now time to fix it. See, we got a fundamental question we got to face here in America: Do we want to continue to grow more dependent on other nations to meet our energy needs, or do we want to do what is necessary to achieve greater control of our economic destiny?

I made my decision. I know what is important for this country to become less dependent on foreign sources of energy, and that requires a national strategy. Now, when I first got elected, I came to Washington and I said, we need a national strategy. And I submitted a national strategy to the United States Congress. And it has been stuck. And now it's time for the Congress to pass the legislation necessary for this country to become less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

Of course it is a ridiculous notion to think that the United States will be weaned from foreign oil, unless we redefine the oil appropriated from foreign countries with American military might as ``domestic''. Michael Klare, writing in Foreign Policy in Focus for January 2004, laid out the true arc of US energy policy since the Cheney Task Force of 2001:

When first assuming office in early 2001, President George W. Bush's top foreign policy priority was not to prevent terrorism or to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction -- or any of the other goals he espoused later that year following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rather, it was to increase the flow of petroleum from suppliers abroad to U.S. markets.... The energy turmoil of 2000-2001 prompted Bush to establish the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG).

Klare then looks at the 2001 plan with an eye towards seeing if anything it says suggests America will ever be much less dependent on foreign oil. He found that the Energy Strategy

has allowed the White House to argue that the administration is committed to a policy of energy independence. However, careful examination of the Cheney report leads to an entirely different conclusion. Aside from the ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling] proposal, nothing in the NEP would contribute to a significant decline in U.S. dependence on imported petroleum. In fact, the very opposite is true: The basic goal of the Cheney plan is to find additional external sources of oil for the United States.

So while the spectre of foreign oil is real because the US imports a lot of it, the president invokes it merely as a ruse to whip up political support for the odious Energy Bill.

The president's numbers do not add up. If the entire laundry list of technologies from ethanol to 75-watt refrigerators all came on the market swimmingly, hardly a drop of the 12 million barrels per day of US oil imports could be displaced. In fact, US oil imports are destined to grow. By the time ANWR is ``eventually'' (maybe in two decades) producing 1 million barrels per day (mbd), US lower-48 production of conventional oil will have depleted by two times that much, from over 4 million barrels per day to less than 1.5. In fact, total US oil production is in steep decline and will be barely half of the 6.5 mbd it is today by the year 2020.

This deceit is so transparent that it is easy to find, as John Stewart did on the Daily Show, self-contradictory passages within the speech itself -- for example when the president touted our ability to increase foreign gas imports:

Today, we're able to super cool natural gas into liquid form so it can be transported on tankers and stored more easily. Thanks to this technology, our imports of liquefied natural gas nearly doubled in 2003. Last year, imports rose another 29 percent.

Let's not even mention that liquefied natural gas technology is more than six decades old.

Nuclear nightmares
The president talked big again about his long-standing onerous plan to resuscitate the dead nuclear power industry -- this time with a twist. Bush now promises that the federal government will drive nukes down the throat of anyone who dares stand in their way on environmental or any sort of regulatory grounds. Don't you get it that nuclear power is clean?

See if you can find today's new wrinkles in the nuke plan when compared with the May 17, 2001 presentation.

Then:

Remarks by the President to Capital City Partnership River Centre Convention Center; St. Paul, Minnesota

America should also expand a clean and unlimited source of energy -- nuclear power. Many Americans may not realize that nuclear power already provides one-fifth of this nation's electricity, safely, and without air pollution. But the last American nuclear power plant to enter operation was ordered in 1973. In contrast, France, our friend and ally, gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.

By renewing and expanding existing nuclear facilities, we can generate tens of thousands of megawatts of electricity, at a reasonable cost, without pumping a gram of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. (Applause.) New reactor designs are even safer and more economical than the reactors we possess today. And my energy plan directs the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the best science, to move expeditiously to find a safe and permanent repository for nuclear waste.

Now:

President Discusses Energy at National Small Business Conference

The first essential step toward greater energy independence is to apply technology to increase domestic production from existing energy resources. And one of the most promising sources of energy is nuclear power. (Applause.) Today's technology has made nuclear power safer, cleaner, and more efficient than ever before. Nuclear power is now providing about 20 percent of America's electricity, with no air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power is one of the safest, cleanest sources of power in the world, and we need more of it here in America.

Unfortunately, America has not ordered a new nuclear power plant since the 1970s. France, by contrast, has built 58 plants in the same period. And today, France gets more than 78 percent of its electricity from safe, clean nuclear power.

It's time for America to start building again. That's why, three years ago, my administration launched the Nuclear Power 2010 Initiative. This is a seven-year, $1.1 billion effort by government and industry to start building new nuclear power plants by the end of this decade. One of the greatest obstacles we face to building new plants is regulatory uncertainty which discourages new plant construction. Since the 1970s, more than 35 plants were stopped at various stages of planning and construction because of bureaucratic obstacles. No wonder -- no wonder -- the industry is hesitant to start building again. We must provide greater certainty to those who risk capital if we want to expand a safe, clean source of energy that will make us less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

To do so, I've asked the Department of Energy to work on changes to existing law that will reduce uncertainty in the nuclear plant licensing process, and also provide federal risk insurance that will protect those building the first four new nuclear plants against delays that are beyond their control. A secure energy future for America must include more nuclear power.

You win the prize if you noticed that it is no longer important to mention how easy it is to handle nuclear waste, and that it is just fine for the nuclear industry to be a public-backed economy with 100% public risk and 100% private profit. Let's just chart the progress of those ``four'' new plants, and see who'd like to get 'em in their own backyard.

Let's talk some more about numbers that don't add up -- referring this time to the nuclear/hydrogen proposal I have blogged about in the past. In contrast to most of what he was saying, the president was refreshingly honest about where he figures the hydrogen for his hydrogen car proposal will come from -- nuclear reactors. The president said,

To help produce fuel for these cars, my administration has also launched a Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative, an effort to develop advanced nuclear technologies that can produce hydrogen fuels for cars and trucks. My budgets have dedicated $35 million over the past three years and will continue this effort.

But there is a big problem with this little hydrogen nuke plan -- even if it works, and that is doubtful, it's not the least bit scalable. Right now, American cars and trucks consume 12 million barrels of oil per day. This is pretty close to a 1000-gigawatt rate of energy use. Even if advanced vehicles and a nuclear-hydrogen fuel cycle two or three times more efficient than current petrol engines could be developed, hundreds of gigawatt-sized nukes would have to be built to make a dent in the current petrol-based transportation system. Uranium resources are subject to supply considerations just like oil. What happens to the uranium market when America's cars depend on it for fuel?

There are so many more fallacies to cover in the president's energy story. The best possible outcome for now on the energy bill would seem to be continued gridlock, while Bush and the Democrats see who can talk the most about our ``dangerous dependence on foreign oil.''