A recent Denver Post editorial urged Congress to approve an energy program proposed by a bipartisan group of Senators then called the “Gang of 10.”
That group has since been joined by ten other Senators, including Colorado’s Ken Salazar, and is now called the “Gang of 20.”
Their proposal would allow some limited drilling for oil and natural gas off the southeastern coast of the U.S. and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, provide subsidies for vehicles that don’t use petroleum-based fuels, and extend subsidies for renewable energy.
Although the Post’s editorial said that proposal had the best chance of being passed by the “bickering Congress,” others have disagreed, notably the House of Representatives.
On September 16 the House rushed through, by a largely party-line vote with no substantive debate, a 245-page bill titled “The Comprehensive Energy Security and Consumption Act.”
Some call that bill a sham and a hoax because it would permanently block drilling in the areas where the most oil and gas can be found and contains other counterproductive measures, and say it was designed mainly to give cover in the comining election to those who oppose drilling.
In any case, the Senate is expected to reject it, so it now appears no energy legislation will be passed this year. That may be the best we can hope for.
Instead of hastily chosen provisions-some good and some bad-as in both Congressional proposals and the energy programs announced by both Presidential candidates, the U.S. critically needs an energy policy that is truly comprehensive, realistic and rational.
All our elected representatives and leaders – the next President, the Congress, and state governments – must put the nation’s welfare ahead of politics and work cooperatively to deal with the energy challenges we face.
The first step should be becoming much better informed on all the relevant facts and issues, followed by agreeing on the proper objectives.
So far, most proposed energy programs – none of which constitute a truly comprehensive policy – have one or all of three stated objectives:
a) quickly curtail the use of fossil fuels to reduce the threat of global warming,
b) increase our energy security by reducing or eliminating dependence on imported energy, and
c) reduce energy costs.
But reducing the threat of global warming is the basic objective in all of them.
The other two objectives probably will prove unachieveable for many years, if ever, and thus serve mainly to mask the drastic and painful measures the proposals would require.
Moreover, missing from all the proposals is an essential objective – maintaining an adequate supply of energy while the transition to new sources is being made.
The world faces two enormous challenges concerning energy. One is to supply the huge and fast-growing energy needs of all countries soon enough to avoid global economic chaos and strife.
The other is to produce all that energy without doing too much harm to the earth’s environment and climate. Clearly, these two challenges conflict, and most current approaches tilt heavily-too heavily I believe – toward the second.
Any energy policy that strikes an acceptable balance between these two conflicting challenges must cope with five fundamental realities, which also conflict:
1. The global population will grow for years to come, and that, along with rapid economic development in many nations, will inevitably increase the global demand for energy.
2. No nation can develop its economy and mitigate the adverse effects of growth unless it has a strong economy-and it can’t have a strong economy without an adequate energy supply.
3. Almost 90 percent of the energy now used worldwide comes from fossil fuels-and, realistically, that can’t be changed significantly for many years.
4. Because the total worldwide resources of all fossil fuels, especially crude oil and natural gas, are dwindling as time passes, replacements for them must eventually be developed.
However, global crude oil production will peak and begin to decline many decades before the oil reserves are depleted, so it’s much more urgent that adequate supplements be developed, soon enough, for the essential products now made from crude oil.
5. For a long time to come there will be no way to produce adequate amounts of the essential forms of energy without doing some damage to both the environment and the climate.
Any energy policy that ignores any of these realities cannot succeed. Their importance and inherent conflicts will require many very difficult and expensive decisions and compromises, both here and worldwide. Success is not guaranteed.
There are no silver bullets now and none are likely ever to be found. The guiding principle should always be that energy is the lifeblood of modern civilization.
No nation can thrive without a plentiful supply of energy. Thus energy sufficiency is much more important than energy independence.
All efforts to meet the energy challenges will also be constrained and shaped by other important factors.
These include the enormity of U.S. and global energy use, the need for adequate technology, the need for massive amounts of capital investment, and, very importantly, enough time to carry out the selected approaches.
The most serious flaws of most of the programs proposed so far are:
They are based on the questionable premise that the threat of human-caused global warming warrants quickly changing our entire energy structure-sources, distribution, and uses – regardless of the undetermined costs and other consequences.
They greatly underestimate the amount of time and money needed to produce immenese amounts of suitable forms of energy from new sources, and they overestimate the reduction in energy use that can be obtained by conservation and efficiency measures.
They propose to restrict the capability to find, produce and use energy from the current major sources-fossil fuels and nuclear power – before adequate replacements can be provided.
They ignore the fact that whatever the U.S. does to reduce global warming will be overwhelmed by what other nations, especially China and India, do or don’t do.
The first three flaws will hasten the advent of much higher energy prices and worse, crippling shortages. It should be obvious that energy shortages are far worse than high prices.
And the fourth flaw will cause the economic and other sacrifices the U.S. will suffer to go largely for naught.
Most or all of the energy programs proposed recently appear to be guided more by environmental motivations and/or political expediency than by sound scientific, engineering, and economic analysis.
Particularly bad, I believe, are the proposed “carbon cap-and-trade” programs of both Presidential candidates and Barack Obama’s proposed “windfall profits tax” on oil companies. Such proposals will hasten the decline in domestic energy supplies.
Certainly, federal and state governments must play major roles in forming and guiding the nation’s energy policy.
However, they should avoid imposing measures that are unneeded, counterproductive, inequitable, or punitive, such as extreme environmental limitations, subsidies that benefit only a few, and punitive taxes. The current Colorado administration’s energy program includes too many such measures.
No knowledgeable person believes we can “drill our way out” of all our energy problems.
However, developing all of our own energy resources is a step in the right direction and there is no valid reason to wait. A sound energy policy must include doing many things at appropriate times, so a carefully-phased program is necessary.
Thorough planning is essential-not the “Ready, Fire, Aim” tendency of many special-interest groups and politicians.
T. L. Gore is a retired chemical engineer with many years of experience in managing technical planning, and economic activities for a major oil company. He lives in Loveland.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
