Oil prices and the future
Re: “If you think oil prices are a big problem … ,” June 5 editorial.
You argue that the United States must soon find energy sources other than oil, and that “solving this puzzle must become a national priority,” but the “problem” is almost the reverse of what you describe.
Developing new fuels soon is essential, yes, but it’s unlikely that new sources can ever fully replace the enormous quantities of fossil-based fuels that we now chew up on a daily basis. When oil production peaks, our future will be an economy of “less” rather than “more” of almost everything.
The evidence is everywhere that our energy-driven world economy is over-consuming the earth’s resources with no end in sight – collapsing fisheries, shrinking forests, expanding deserts, deteriorating grasslands, rising seas, rivers running dry and disappearing species. Civilization must learn to survive with a smaller economy and less energy, not more.
John R. Bermingham, Denver
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As a longtime petroleum geologist, I have to disagree with your statement that “geologists aren’t finding major new oil fields anywhere in the world.” Giant oil and natural gas fields are being discovered offshore in west Africa, Brazil, the Nile Delta, Trinidad, Russia, the Caspian Basin and, closer to home, the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, among other locations.
Wind power will not reduce the level of oil imports as implied in your editorial. This is a physical impossibility, as wind power is used to generate electricity in the United States; oil is not. You should know that coal, natural gas, nuclear energy and hydroelectric power are used to generate electricity. Wind power may reduce their usage, or their rate of growth, but not usage of oil, imported or otherwise.
There is no doubt that large accumulations of oil and gas are becoming more difficult to find. New discoveries are often located in remote areas and frequently in politically unstable countries. Yes, production will peak in the future; exactly when is being hotly debated inside and outside the industry. Demand is growing rapidly. These are all good arguments to prepare for a different future.
Elliott Simonberg, Denver
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Your editorial draws pointed attention to one of the most serious and under-respected problems of our times. However, there was an omission from the several alternatives discussed to postpone the day of reckoning: the oil- from-coal process for producing liquid hydrocarbon fuels – and many valuable byproducts – from coal.
South Africa has been producing these “synfuels” successfully for 50 years, using its abundant resources of low-grade coal. After some years of government subsidy while markets were being established, the process is economical and its products are sold profitably in direct competition with conventional petroleum products.
Coal is still the most abundant fossil fuel worldwide. The costs of coal washing, transport and clean-up of the products of combustion condemn low-grade resources to neglect when only their thermal value is considered. The website www.sasol.com provides some insight into how much more can be done with coal than simply burning it to generate heat.
Colin F. Smith, Denver
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I appreciated this editorial, though most estimates I’ve heard for “peak oil” from petroleum geologists like Colin Campbell or Matthew Simmons suggest this event will occur before 2010. What also needs to come before the public and has been ignored by the media is the content of the president’s disastrous energy bill. The editorial mentions that conservation needs to be part of our country’s solution to the problem of diminishing petroleum supplies. The House members who passed this bill actually vetoed an amendment that would increase fuel- efficiency standards.
Politicians in Washington continue to promote legislation that is tantamount to corporate welfare while ignoring the needs of their true constituents.
Exxon Mobil and other oil giants have earned $97 billion in profits in recent years. Yet this bill includes $12 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for these corporations. Additionally, it allows energy companies to skirt the 1969 National Environmental Policy act in several instances. At the very least, this information needs to be part of a public dialogue. But it is slipping under the radar without public scrutiny because the electronic media have chosen to ignore its importance.
This bill should include support for some of the remedies suggested in your editorial, but it does not. Thank you for raising these issues. Please make the connection with the current energy bill, which offers few solutions to this growing crisis.
Carol Farina, Lakewood
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The critical point in the price of crude oil is not five or 20 years ahead of us. It will occur this year or in 2006, when the demand for oil exceeds world capacity to produce.
There is no shortage of oil reserves. The shortage is in the rate of production capacity and the capital to develop it.
One key problem is world refining capacity. Demand will be limited by a shortage of refining capacity.
Our major response is conservation. People will learn to walk, ride a bicycle, carpool or ride the bus.
Roy Whisenhunt, Littleton
The government and drug safety
Re: “Are drugs safe?” June 5 Perspective section.
There are no guarantees in life. There is no guarantee that you won’t get cancer, Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis.
If you are diagnosed with such a disease, and are lucky enough for there to be new treatment options, there is no guarantee that the drugs will be 100 percent safe.
The length of time for a drug to be developed and go though the clinical trail process is, on average, 13 years. Requiring further government review will add years to the approval timeline. How long can people with life-threatening diseases afford to wait?
At some point, patients must be allowed to weigh for themselves the risk versus potential benefits of drugs, and be permitted to use them on an informed consent basis.
Instituting more government bureaucracy will offer only one guarantee: There will be no end in sight to our rising health-care costs.
Rebekah Fisher, Denver
High-speed access woes
Re: “Land, lotsa land, no DSL; Telecoms race to homestead areas bereft of high-speed Net,” June 5 Business cover:
The story on Colorado’s bizarre, hole- ridden patchwork of high-speed Internet services reminds me of the horrific days (not all that long ago, really) when many sections of rural Colorado were stuck with telephone party lines. The PUC worried about the tiny increase upgrades would bring to monthly phone bills across the state. Those of us with party lines countered that we were unfairly prevented from conducting business because we could not use modems on those lines.
Now we’ve got a parallel situation. I live about 6 miles from Boulder and yet am served by neither DSL nor cable. A neighboring subdivision has Comcast, and a nearby street has DSL – that line comes within a tenth of a mile of my house. Yet, Qwest has been unresponsive to our repeated pleas to upgrade our lines – in fact, we’ve been told they have no plans to upgrade them ever. So far, I’ve been unable to find anyone at Comcast who could even answer my question. The only option is satellite, but that’s expensive and inferior.
More than half of the people in my neighborhood work from home. The rest of us would like to. In this age, when Web conferencing and live software demos are a baseline expectation of most professional jobs, you can’t even afford to admit to your clients and co-workers that you’re on dial-up. You’d be laughed off the line.
And just why is Colorado so behind the curve in this matter, anyway? My mother lives in an extremely rural area of northern New Hampshire. Her little village has no commerce in it whatsoever … but, sure enough, she has DSL.
It’s time high-speed Internet access was seen as part of basic phone service across the state. This affects job productivity, real estate values, and rental occupancy rates. Providing access to some business owners, telecommuters and landlords while denying it to their neighbors gives the “haves” an unfair advantage.
Claudia Putnam, Jamestown
Death of Denver officer
Re: “A lethal virus took Officer Young,” June 5 John Andrews column.
John Andrews’ “unconventional wisdom” in analyzing the meaning of Detective Donnie Young’s death is truly amazing. He first acknowledges that “one shocking incident is not a trend,” then repeatedly contradicts himself by trying to imply that there is a “death-virus” growing of cop hatred. Andrews makes the sleazy assertion that Mayor John Hickenlooper (who used his clout to get funding for the new justice center) is to blame for the death by “pushing cop control.”
The mayor hasn’t “pushed cop control” but has been engaged in a balancing act of supporting the police in the often dangerous and heroic work they do with fairly disciplining the police when things go badly. The success or failure of this balancing act is what determines whether the “virus” shows.
Andrews is playing an ugly and dishonest game by using this police shooting to further his political agenda. To this end, Andrews blames everyone for the tragic death of Detective Young except the one who allegedly perpetrated the senseless crime: Raul Garcia-Gomez.
E. Hess, Denver
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It is clear that columnist John Andrews is passionate about illegal immigration issues, and he seems very supportive and understanding of local law enforcement’s limited resources.
He says, “We owe our police better support in political, material and moral terms,” and then, that “Denver police budgets, recruitment and morale are down.”
The suspect in Detective Donnie Young’s murder was stopped three times and let go, even though it was known he was an illegal immigrant. My understanding is that this was due to the limited resources of the local police.
Andrews waxes poetic about the need for leaders to stand up and address these issues. Andrews himself was a leader. He was president of the Colorado Senate. He had his chance. If he was so passionate about these issues, why did he did not do what he could to provide sufficient funding to help local law enforcement detain illegal immigrants?
Could it be the TABOR amendment stood in the way? Now that he is out of office, it seems convenient he is blaming everyone, from Mayor John Hickenlooper to Vicente Fox to the media for this tragedy. It seems Andrews is in some way asking current leaders to clean up the mess he left.
Michael Long, Denver
Take Back America
Re: “Lost liberals ponder path back to power,” June 5 John Aloysius Farrell column.
It was encouraging to read that liberals from across America gathered in Washington, D.C., last week for the Take Back America conference. Unfortunately, it will accomplish little.
The Democratic Party has never been the left party that many at the conference want it to be. It represents the center and center-left view of millions of Americans who are not necessarily “progressive” or even liberal.
The Green Party is a left party that represents the values of the conference attendees. If liberals and progressives turned their efforts away from the Democrats and sent a block of Greens to the U.S. Congress, the void on the American political left would be filled.
There would be a sea change in not only what issues are debated in government, but also how government addresses issues. This is not without precedent. In the 19th century, the Republicans (a “third party” at the time) rose to such prominence that they sent members to Congress and got Abraham Lincoln elected president.
To their credit, those at Take Back America understand that their views are under-represented in American government. Until they understand that the answer lies outside of the Democratic Party, the “path to power” will never be realized.
Rick VanWie, Co-Chair, Denver Green Party, Denver
Inject some reality into discussion over wild horses
Re: “Fact, fiction on West’s wild horses,” June 5 guest commentary by Andrea Lococo.
I’m not anti-wild horse and pro-cattle, nor am I pro- wild horse and anti-cattle. There just needs to be some reality injected into the current wild horse conversation.
What are the costs of the current Bureau of Land Management program? What would the costs be for the programs the wild horse “advocates” envision? The United States is a rich nation; we can afford spending that some people would consider wasteful, but how much is enough? How much is too much?
The key to the wild horse problem is improving the quality so that the different riding horse markets will utilize the wild horses and taxpayers don’t have to pay to have them hauled all over the United States looking for “adopters.”
In some ways, the BLM is preying on the naivete of some people to get them to deal with their long-term problem of feeding these horses for the next 20 to 30 years.
Marvin Gard, Santa Fe, N.M.
TO THE POINT: Short takes from readers
I am very disappointed on the lack of coverage on the “Downing Street Memo.” I would have thought that a story with huge implications for our country would get more coverage. I have yet to see the press push for answers on this issue with the White House. It would appear that true press is dead in this country.
Mark Thomas, Longmont
Excuse me, Mr. President, let me get this straight: Tossing left-over embryos into medical waste containers at fertility clinics is OK. But utilizing them for federally funded embryonic stem-cell research, with could lead to life-saving futures for the terminally ill, is morally wrong. Huh?
Dorothy Hadwick, Fort Collins
The Supreme Court has ruled that medicinal marijuana use is illegal. That ought to teach those people to come down with cancer!
Herb Spencer, Franktown
According to the 1040 tax code, those filing jointly with a “taxable” income of $50,000 (after all deductions and credits) paid $6,804 in 2003 and $6.789 in 2004. A whopping $15 tax cut. Wow, now I can take that world cruise. So much for the phony concern for the middle class.
Richard L. Stover, Grand Junction
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