Axis of oil

Coming to their senses on energy; the US is ``in deep, deep trouble''

This story by Richard Bell, Communications Director for the Post Carbon Institute, on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources recent hearing about ``The Geopolitics of Oil'' is worth noting. Bell reports,

There appeared to be a genuine sense that some members really were surprised at how bad things look for the U.S. The shock was so great that after declaring himself a ``free-market conservative,'' Republican Jeff Sessions (R-AL) concluded the session by admitting that if you looked at energy as a national security issue rather than as a market commodity, Congress might be justified in spending more money on energy R&D and tax credits.

The focus of the testimony was on oil in the transportation sector, which will be responsible for most of the predicted increase in demand over the next two decades. Dr. Fatih Birol described this dependence on oil in the auto, truck, and plane sectors as ``the Achilles heel'' of the energy problem.

Linda Stuntz, who participated in a Council of Foreign Relations report last fall on ``National Security Consequences of U.S. Oil Dependency,'' stunned the Senators when she said that there was consensus among the report's authors that talking about ``energy independence'' for the United States was chasing an impossible dream. Stuntz said that it was not clear whether the U.S. could achieve energy independence even with the most ``draconian'' government interventions. Dr. Flynt Leverett from the New America Foundation echoed Stuntz's analysis:

``…there is no economically plausible scenario for a strategically meaningful reduction in the dependence of the United States and its allies on imported hydrocarbons during the next quarter century.''

Reminds me of what John Howe said last summer about the energy alternatives people often bandy about as solutions to the energy crisis in his Good Life Center program on peacecast.us, ``You have to put numbers on these delusions.''

It appears the witnesses at this hearing have crunched those numbers. World oil intensity of 85 million barrels per day, with the US consuming 1/4 of that, will be extremely difficult to grow, or even maintain within a few years.

A whole lot of Americans, myself included, are sleepwalking into the energy future. We haven't even begun to see it hit the fan yet. But when it does, the times will be surprising.