[OneLoneClone]

Woolsey & McFarlane's Oil Dependency Op Ed Piece in FT:
They seem pissed at Bush for not pushing hybrids and not protecting refineries better. Thier attitude is that even if peak isn't for 20 years, a successful terroist attack on major refineries could have the same effect AT ANY TIME, so we should be acting now. ($ sub required)

America must end its dependence on oil By Robert McFarlane and James Woolsey
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')little over a year ago we helped organise an effort among a wide range of groups in the US to draw public attention to the potential for two emerging trends to bring down the global economy. These trends, which affect the price and availability of energy, are the greater-than-expected pace of increased demand for oil in China, India and other emerging markets and the threat of disruption of Persian Gulf supplies by a terrorist attack. They have helped push the price of oil to more than $60 a barrel with forecasters seeing little prospect of it ever going below $50 again.

The sober awakening to these two trends by governments and the oil industry was underscored by a new round in the debate concerning the “peak” of oil reserves – the top of the bell-shaped curve that represents the world’s oil reserves and the lower production and higher cost of oil products that lie ahead when the peak is reached. Most experts agree that we will reach the peak within 25-30 years.

Because the impact of growing demand and dwindling supplies is long-term, it is not surprising that there has been only a cautious response to these factors from governments, with no noticeable action. It is less understandable that political leaders from Tokyo to London and Washington have failed to deal with the threat of a disruption in oil flows from the Gulf.

[Eli]

Well I welcome his comments.

The US needs to get off the foreign oil nipple now and it is a matter of National Security.

We have a big target on our heads one good strike at the oil supply and the world and the US will be in chaos. If terrorists successfully attacked the Saudi Arabian oil port of Ras Tanura it would be game over lights out for everyone.

Notice he is not advocating invasion but conservation and new technologies for national security reasons.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', 'W')ell I welcome his comments. The US needs to get off the foreign oil nipple now and it is a matter of National Security.
We have a big target on our heads one good strike at the oil supply and the world and the US will be in chaos. If terrorists successfully attacked the Saudi Arabian oil port of Ras Tanura it would be game over lights out for everyone.
Notice he is not advocating invasion but conservation and new technologies for national security reasons.

[Ibon]

Today Peak Oil has a growing number of advocates that cover the whole spectrum of political idealogy. It has the potential to break old established polarities in that the consequences of the upcoming peak are so fundamental to our infrastructure that it reaches a common denominator.
It is a reality event. In spite of this we still do not see a national or global recognition to start prioritizing mitigation with the sense that this is a national, regional, global emergency. I am wondering what will be the trigger points that will start to focus governments to set this as the highest priority that it deserves. It probably wont be geology but most likely geopolitical or environmental and perhaps not something we can forsee or model. The sooner this "event" or "events" occur the better for mankind in the long run. So what's your best guess as to what this trigger point will be?

[Daryl]

Sadly, the lights will have to go out (or heat off, empty gas stations, take your pick) for the political landscape to shift enough to start broad based change in the US. It is nontheless productive, however, for the educated to begin advocating programs in advance of that watershed event.

[jdmartin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')oday Peak Oil has a growing number of advocates that cover the whole spectrum of political idealogy. It has the potential to break old established polarities in that the consequences of the upcoming peak are so fundamental to our infrastructure that it reaches a common denominator.
It is a reality event. In spite of this we still do not see a national or global recognition to start prioritizing mitigation with the sense that this is a national, regional, global emergency. I am wondering what will be the trigger points that will start to focus governments to set this as the highest priority that it deserves. It probably wont be geology but most likely geopolitical or environmental and perhaps not something we can forsee or model. The sooner this "event" or "events" occur the better for mankind in the long run. So what's your best guess as to what this trigger point will be?

[MicroHydro]

Robert "Bud" McFarlane was present (with V.P. Candidate George H. W. Bush and the CIA's William Casey) at the 18 October 1980 meeting with Iranian representatives in Paris. These traitors conspired with the Iranian Revolutionaries to extend the captivity of American diplomats until inauguration day 1981 - insuring that it would be Reagan who would win the election and be inaugurated. This so called "October Surprise" has been well documented by author Robert Parry. Israeli PM Yitzak Shamir confirmed it among many others.

So these evil men committed treason to overthrow President Jimmy Carter, an early advocate of ending America's imported oil dependency. A quarter century later, they are singing Jimmy Carter's song. Too bad for America, it is a quarter century too late. America didn't just die, she was murdered, and Robert "Bud" McFarlane was one of the killers.

[Clouseau2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'S')adly, the lights will have to go out (or heat off, empty gas stations, take your pick) for the political landscape to shift enough to start broad based change in the US. It is nontheless productive, however, for the educated to begin advocating programs in advance of that watershed event.

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', 'W')ell I welcome his comments. The US needs to get off the foreign oil nipple now and it is a matter of National Security. We have a big target on our heads one good strike at the oil supply and the world and the US will be in chaos. If terrorists successfully attacked the Saudi Arabian oil port of Ras Tanura it would be game over lights out for everyone. Notice he is not advocating invasion but conservation and new technologies for national security reasons.

[Daryl]

Well, that's my point. As long as Peak Oil is the domain of liberal environmentalists, we're screwed. You've got to really scare the mass of people to get them to commit to something big and to sacrifice. That's why Bush emphasized WMD as the primary propaganda for the Iraq War. We've got to apply the same tactics to domestic energy policy. Global Warming isn't going to work as a scare tactic. Nobody cares or can relate to that as an emergency. "Energy security" Now that's better. It conjures up images of empty gas stations and cold homes. It also allows you to demonize select foreigners, a timeless winner when it comes to manipulating the public.

[slick]

James Woolsey, ironically one of the loudest cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion, has an article on the leader page of the Wall Street Journal today, touting electric and hybrid cars. He makes quite a convincing argument (off-peak electricity powering hybrids that also use alternative liquid fuels). He says we can get 500mpg from liquids like this, especially considering the new battery technologies becoming available. He sees the oil issue as a national security issue mainly, and I would guess his enthusiasm for the hybrid/electric/biofuels approach was spawned by the failure of the Bush regime's Iraq plan.



I recently saw the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?" It also gives an upbeat assessment if what is possible if only the car and oil companies would get out of the way.

I am left more hopeful than before.

[slick]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('James Woolsey', '[')b]Gentlemen, Start Your Plug-Ins By R. JAMES WOOLSEY 3- Dec 2006 pg A10:

An oil and security task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recently opined that "[t]he voices that espouse 'energy independence' are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future . . ." Others have also said, essentially, that other nations will control our transportation fuel -- get used to it. Yet House Democrats have announced a push for "energy independence in 10 years," and last month General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. Who's right -- those who drive toward independence or those who shrug?

Bet on major progress toward independence, spurred by market forces and a portfolio of rapidly developing oil-replacing technologies.

In recent years a number of alternatives to conventional oil have come to the fore -- oil sands, oil shale, coal-to-diesel and coal-to-methanol technologies. But their acceptability to a new Congress, quite possibly the next president, and a public increasingly concerned about global warming will depend on their demonstrating affordable and effective methods of sequestering the carbon they produce or otherwise avoiding carbon emissions.

Ethanol's appeal rose a few years ago when it became clear that genetically modified biocatalysts could break down the cellulose in biomass and thus enable ethanol's production from a wide range of plant life. This means that, compared with corn, little fossil fuel is needed during biomass cultivation and land use presents much less of a problem. Indeed two years ago the National Energy Policy Commission (NEPC), making reasonable assumptions about improved vehicle efficiency and biomass yields over the next 20 years, estimated that just 7% of U.S. farmland (the amount now in the Soil Bank) could produce enough biomass to provide half the fuel needed by U.S. passenger vehicles, and that production costs for cellulosic ethanol were headed downward toward around 70 cents per gallon. Further, conversion of only a portion of industrial, municipal and animal wastes -- using thermal processes now coming into commercial operation -- appears to be able to yield an additional several million barrels a day of diesel or, with some processes, methanol.

But in spite of the technological promise of alternative liquid fuels, skeptics rightly point out that it will take time to build production facilities and learn the practicalities of operating biorefineries and shifting industry from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates. Most of all there is a sense of investor caution, driven by memories of the mid-'80s and the late '90s when sharp drops in oil prices, driven in part by increased production from Saudi reserves, bankrupted such undertakings as the Synfuels Corporation. Also, industry support for moving away from oil dependence has long been weak outside agribusiness, and consumers see little immediate savings from using alternative liquid fuels.

All this is likely to change decisively, because electricity is about to become a major partner with alternative liquid fuels in replacing oil.

The change is being driven by innovations in the batteries that now power modern electronics. If hybrid gasoline-electric cars are provided with advanced batteries (GM's announcement said its choice would be lithium-ion) having improved energy and power density -- variants of the ones in our computers and cell phones -- dozens of vehicle prototypes are now demonstrating that these "plug-in hybrids" can more than double hybrids' overall (gasoline) mileage. With a plug-in, charging your car overnight from an ordinary 110-volt socket in your garage lets you drive 20 miles or more on the electricity stored in the topped-up battery before the car lapses into its normal hybrid mode. If you forget to charge or exceed 20 miles, no problem, you then just have a regular hybrid with the insurance of liquid fuel in the tank. And during those 20 all-electric miles you will be driving at a cost of between a penny and three cents a mile instead of the current 10-cent-a-mile cost of gasoline.

Utilities are rapidly becoming quite interested in plug-ins because of the substantial benefit to them of being able to sell off-peak power at night. Because off-peak nighttime charging uses unutilized capacity, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles. Further, those plug-ins that are left connected to an electrical socket after being fully charged (most U.S. cars are parked over 20 hours a day) can substitute for expensive natural gas by providing electricity from their batteries back to the grid: "spinning" reserves to help deal with power outages and regulation of the grid's voltage and amperage.

Once plug-ins start appearing in showrooms it is not only consumers and utility shareholders who will be smiling. If cheap off-peak electricity supplies a portion of our transportation needs, this will help insulate alternative liquid fuels from OPEC market manipulation designed to cripple oil's competitors. Indian and Chinese demand and peaking oil production may make it much harder for OPEC today to use any excess production capacity to drive prices down and destroy competitive technology. But as plug-ins come into the fleet low electricity costs will stand as a substantial further barrier to such market manipulation. Since OPEC cannot drive oil prices low enough to undermine our use of off-peak electricity, it is unlikely to embark on a course of radical price cuts at all because such cuts are painful for its oil-exporter members. Plug-ins thus may well give investors enough confidence to back alternative liquid fuels without any need for new taxes on oil or subsidies to protect them.

Environmentalists should join this march with enthusiasm. Replacing hydrocarbons with fuels derived from biomass and waste reduces vehicles' carbon emissions very substantially. And replacing gasoline with electricity further brightens the environmental picture. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute has shown that, with today's electricity grid, there would be a national average reduction in carbon emissions by about 60% per vehicle when a plug-in hybrid with 20-mile all-electric range replaces a conventional car.

Subsidizing expensive substitutes for petroleum, ignoring the massive infrastructure costs needed to fuel family cars with hydrogen, searching for a single elegant solution -- none of this has worked, nor will it. Instead we should encourage a portfolio of inexpensive fuels, including electricity, that requires very little infrastructure change and let its components work together: A 50 mpg hybrid, once it becomes a plug-in, will likely get solidly over 100 mpg of gasoline (call it "mpgg"); if it is also a flexible fuel vehicle using 85% ethanol, E-85, its mpgg rises to around 500.

The market will likely operate to expand sharply the use of these technologies that are already in pilot plants and prototypes and heavily reduce oil use in the foreseeable future. And given the array of Wahhabis, terrorists and Ahmadinejad-like fanatics who sit atop the Persian Gulf's two-thirds of the world's conventional oil, such reduction will not be a disservice to the nation.
Mr. Woolsey, co-chair of the Committee on the Present Danger, was Director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his means that, compared with corn, little fossil fuel is needed during biomass cultivation and land use presents much less of a problem. Indeed two years ago the National Energy Policy Commission (NEPC), making reasonable assumptions about improved vehicle efficiency and biomass yields over the next 20 years, estimated that just 7% of U.S. farmland (the amount now in the Soil Bank) could produce enough biomass to provide half the fuel needed by U.S. passenger vehicles,

[billp]

keep after them. links

[Cynus]

"DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles."
Can this possibly be true? 200 million cars charging at the same time won't put extra strain on the grid and won't require any new power plants? Seems incredible.

[skyemoor]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', '"')DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles."
Can this possibly be true? 200 million cars charging at the same time won't put extra strain on the grid and won't require any new power plants? Seems incredible.

[Cynus]

I assume that their 30 - 40 percent is for all 200 million cars? I guess our 200 year supply of coal just dropped to 50 years. I'd love to see a graph of what rate of increase in coal production/consumption would be necessary to charge 200 million cars every night within the next, say, 25 years.

[chris-h]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')With cars charging overnight, the utilities would get a new market for their product. PHEVs would increase residential consumption of electricity by about 30 - 40 percent. The increased generation could lead to replacing aging coal-fired plants sooner with newer, more environmentally friendly versions," said Kintner-Meyer.

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'I') assume that their 30 - 40 percent is for all 200 million cars? I guess our 200 year supply of coal just dropped to 50 years. I'd love to see a graph of what rate of increase in coal production/consumption would be necessary to charge 200 million cars every night within the next, say, 25 years.

[skyemoor]

One thing we have to keep in mind is that each charge is good for 20 miles tops (at least with the current PHEV Prius conversions). If someone drives 45 miles in a day, then 25 of those are gasoline powered.