Llewellyn
King
Read Llewellyn's bio and previous columns
June 23, 2008
Bad Energy Vibes from
Barack Obama, Odd Ones from John McCain
Memo to Sen. Barack
Obama: Beware of your friends and their opinions. For example, Rep.
Edward Markey was on a Sunday talk show allegedly defending your
position on offshore drilling. But in fact, the Massachusetts Democrat
was defending his own long-held and irrelevant views. You just had an
epiphany on campaign finance. Now, you need to have one on energy. At
this point, the world needs oil and will need it for many decades. True,
the United States will not get any new oil from the outer continental
shelf for 10 years, and it will only account for about 4 percent of our
needs as long as it lasts. But even that is essential.
Memo to the Friends of
Sen. John McCain: Just when you thought your candidate had settled down
to be George W. Bush Lite, he up and proved that old mavericks cannot
change their ways. McCain split the difference on oil by reversing
himself on outer continental shelf drilling and remaining adamant on not
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This put Tom
Ridge, the former homeland security secretary, on the spot on a Sunday
talk show. Ridge simply could not explain the inconsistency of McCain,
whose presidential bid he supports.
No
matter what you believe should be done, the irrefutable fact is that the
world is in a terrible energy bind – and all the indications are that
the world energy situation may get worse.
Politicians of the left want to believe that there are technologies
ready to come on line, and they are being squeezed out by old-line
energy companies. They place their faith in what are described loosely
as “alternatives,” which include solar, wind and geothermal power. These
they see as being the equivalent of low-impact aerobics. Painless and
environmentally neutral. These politicians oppose the burning of coal
and have no coherent policy on oil and gas. They choose to believe that
the current high price of oil is a combination of oil company greed,
Wall Street speculation and the Bush Administration's appeasement of the
Saudi royal family.
Conservative politicians have as much problem facing reality as their
liberal colleagues. They have an inordinate faith that current
off-limits drilling areas, both in the ocean and on land, will produce
untold quantities of energy for the United States. They have
considerable faith in new technologies that will clean up coal, find oil
at ever-greater depths, and exploit gas hydrates on the ocean floor.
They also believe that oil shale in the West, abandoned in the 1970s
because of the environmental consequences of mining and the shortage of
water, will replace Saudi Arabia.
One thing the left and the right do agree on is that plug-in hybrid
vehicles are going to help a lot. The theory is that they will make a
big dent in the 20 million barrels of oil that the United States gulps
down every day. That is 10,000 gallons of gasoline every second,
according to John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Company.
There is an energy establishment, and it is of one mind on energy
challenges. This is the thrust of its thinking:
l
Energy
conservation is essential.
l
The outer
continental shelf should be explored aggressively, along with federal
lands.
l
ANWR
should be drilled immediately, and a natural gas pipeline from Alaska
should have priority.
l
Nuclear
power is the best substitute for the coal now being burned, and to
replace geriatric plants.
l
Coal
gasification is the best way to burn coal.
l
Wind
power works and should be encouraged; in particular, storing wind energy
as compressed air needs research.
l
Liquefied
natural gas imports need to be boosted.
l
The
search for new technologies needs to be relentless.
l
Energy
producers, from oil companies to wind farms to electric utilities, need
consistency in public policy.
The unsaid addendum to the establishment thinking is that Obama needs to
get some energy advisers who have a solid purchase on the Earth, and
that McCain needs to listen to his advisers. In 1974, governments fell
like ninepins as the global economy was battered by high energy prices.
The battering next time may be much worse.
© 2008 North Star
Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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