RSS Feed MenuAmericans are rightfully horrified by the massive environmental degradation wrought by the Gulf Oil Spill, with both BP and the Obama administration the targets of much-deserved criticism. In the wake of the disaster, some politicians have called for a ban on new domestic offshore drilling, with others going as far as seeking an outright ban, period. This approach may be good politics motivated by the emotion of the moment, but it is not good public policy.
Close to 40% of annual energy consumption in the United States is derived from oil, and about 57% of that oil is imported. Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike can agree that energy independence is a national imperative. Our addiction to foreign oil makes us vulnerable to the drastic price fluctuations that come with it, destabilizing our economy in times of foreign crisis. More importantly, American expenditures on foreign oil help prop up stringently anti-American governments like those of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Only 7.3% of American energy, however, is generated by renewable sources. In the event that domestic drilling is curtailed, it is not only the oil companies that will take their business – and much-needed jobs – elsewhere. America’s continued energy needs will likely be offset by simply importing more petroleum, not drawing on cleaner sources here at home as environmentalists might hope.
To be sure, in a perfect world the U.S. would not consume any oil whatsoever. Oil is a non-renewable resource that clearly engenders great environmental risks in both its extraction and transportation. But the world is not perfect. And barring miraculous technological breakthroughs in the near future, the road to energy independence and freedom from oil will not be paved with silver bullets. Although it may make up an admittedly small fraction of our national energy portfolio, domestic offshore drilling is a regrettable but necessary step forward on that road.
Nevertheless, we can certainly be smarter about our energy policy in general and domestic drilling particular. We can do far more, for example, to ensure that offshore drilling is as safe as humanly possible. We must also continuously work to reduce overall energy consumption. If our goal is to wean America off oil entirely, however, a ban on new or all domestic offshore drilling would be an inflexible strategy. Explicitly directing tax revenue derived from domestic drilling towards renewable energy research and development, on the other hand, would potentially help finance the shift towards the new energy economy that we need and deserve. Oil will not become obsolete until the day that clean, renewable energy is cheap and widely available. Until that day arrives, we should not do it enthusiastically – see well-meaning yet misguided maxim “drill, baby, drill” – but we should continue to drill offshore nonetheless.
balconesfault // Jun 8, 2010 at 8:40 am
A sensible article, all in all.
But one error … you write about a well-meaning yet misguided maxim “drill, baby, drill”.
There never was such a thing. The “drill, baby drill” cry was intended to shut down discussion of energy policy, and not to promote a more rational discourse.
Meanwhile, while there may be some liberals who would want to shut down all off-shore drilling … you can rest assured that Obama is not one of them. He understands the forces in play that you lay out here, and is aware of the short game need for continued US oil production as well as the long game need for preparing for a future where our current trajectory of oil consumption is unsustainable.
Anyone who understands the play of politics and public opinion should be celebrating the current moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. We have one massive well pumping millions of gallons of crude into the ocean, and a response capability that is already overtaxed. And yes, that has engendered grumbling from some that drilling should be permanently banned.
Imagine if before the BP well was capped or plugged … if while it was continuing to send a geyser of oil towards the surface … another major drilling disaster occurred, and another plume elsewhere in the gulf erupted, uncontrollable.
At that point, there might be no place for moderation whatsoever, as a groundswell of support for a complete ban would be so strong you’d see Republicans jumping on the bandwagon, particularly in an election year.
The takeaway lesson here has to be that there is a tremendous responsibility on industry to drill and transport oil safely. The greatest threat to offshore oil drilling right now isn’t Greenpeace, but BP.
Carney // Jun 8, 2010 at 9:47 am
OPEC has 78% of world oil reserves, whereas we have only 3% (counting offshore, ANWR, etc). And because OPEC hoards its oil and releases it sparingly, it is going through its reserves more slowly than the non-OPEC world, and thus its share is rising and ours is falling. By 2020, the Mideast alone (to say nothing of the rest of OPEC such as Venezuela) will have over 80% of what’s left, and we’ll have less than 1% – and that’s without tapping offshore and ANWR. If we do tap them what little we have will decline even more, and we’ll be even more at our foes’ mercy. The petroleum market is permanently and unfixably under OPEC’s control. The only way forward is to leave oil behind.
Fortunately, contrary to constant portrayals, that’s not a pipe dream, nor does it require a massive Apollo or Manhattan Project style effort. For one thing, we’re already effectively energy independent when it comes to electricity generation – only 3% of our power generation uses oil (all in Hawaii). Nationwide, 50% is from coal, 20% each from natural gas and nuclear, 5% from hydro-electric dams, and the remaining 2% is from all “green” sources combined (solar, wind, tidal, geo-thermal, etc.) — all domestic. So flipping on the lights doesn’t fund the terrorists.
It’s in vehicle fuel that we’re dependent on oil – 97% of cars (in a coincidental inversion) can only use petroleum fuel (gasoline or diesel). But that’s relatively easy to remedy. It costs automakers only about $130 per car to add full flex-fuel capability, the ability to run as easily on alcohol fuel (methanol, ethanol, etc.) as on gasoline, to a given model while manufacturing it. That price is so low it’s “in the noise” – in fact, flex fuel vehicles sold today cost no more at retail than their gasoline-only equivalents. Given its importance and low cost, we should simply mandate that all new cars sold in America (sold, not made, so as to include imports) be fully flex-fueled, as a standard feature like seat belts. Since 10% of cars on the road at any given time are new that year, within about 3-4 years a critical mass of cars will be alcohol compatible, and gas stations will race to offer alcohol fuel, especially very cheap methanol, to avoid being undercut. Oil’s monopoly will be broken at last.
http://www.energyvictory.net
founder // Jun 8, 2010 at 11:46 am
US does not need oil. US has great companies making a change possible. Look at all this electronic devices. They are all produced in factories where much of the production equipment comes from the US company Applied Materials.
Applied Materials has a new business branch – photovoltaic factories. I was enthusiastic as I have seen them first time on the Inersolar fair 2008 in Munich.
http://live.pege.org/2008-intersolar/photovoltaic-factories.htm
This was just in the time of the big oil price increase, I have mad a study about it
http://live.pege.org/2008-energy how to replace oil by electric power.
I asked a manager of Applied Materials, look at this
http://live.pege.org/2008-energy/war-economy.htm
Can You? Yes, it’s possible.
World has now 2 big problems: peak-oil and climate change.
US had 1941 also 2 big problems: Nazi-Germany and imperial Japan.
What did US December 7th 1941? Surrender? Wail? No! US decided to overcome both problems with an enourmouse effort.
1942, 1943, 1944 had been more than 37% BSP invested in the military to overcome the threat from Nazi-Germany and imerial Japan.
US did really great things 1941 to 1945. From an labor test to mass production of penicillin, the development of the atomic bomb.
With a similar effort, US could become independent from fossil energy, all what is necessyr is the will to change.
Freedom and independence is, when Your house can produce enough energy for all the household and the cars of the family and is eable to contribute to the energy necessary to produce all the things Your consume.
I designed 1991 the first inhabited solar powerplant called “GEMINI house” for freedom and independence of the individual. http://live.pege.org/1992/
BTW all the US oil production can be replaced by 2 kW photovoltaic per cititzen.
easton // Jun 8, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Carney, not bad analysis but your numbers are way off. The U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Agency (EIA) said seven of the world’s fifteen largest oil producers are outside of OPEC. As of 2006, those countries were Russia, the United States, China, Mexico, Canada, Norway, and Brazil. Russia has nearly 10% of the worlds oil reserves and it is likely higher. Canada, of course, has massive deposits themselves.
We absolutley need this moratorium if only to ensure that all safety procedures are followed in the future, if that entails the leasees pay for US safety inspector teams, then so be it. It should be noted that the offshore field at Jack 2 holds massive reserves of between 3 and 15 billion barrels, and this is at one site alone. If anything this massive spill has taught us is just how much oil there is in the gulf, the key is to get it shortly. BP tried shortcuts, we all know their safety record, and after this they should be banned from all Gulf of Mexico operations. Give the leases to companies that have proven their safety records.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/8/11274/83638
This said, while I support continued drilling we must absolutely begin to utilize every other option on the table (as Carney mentioned above) if for no other reason then the thought of Saudi Sheiks funding Al Qaeda terrorists should be enough to convince anyone. Imagine if during WW2 we continued massive trading with Axis sympathisers, who then funded a significant portion of the money to the Nazis. It would have been insane. We must view this the same way. 8 + years in Afghanistan and Iraq all because of Saudi oil funded extremism should make this obvious to even Republicans as well.
hormelmeatco // Jun 8, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Carney,
Alcohol-based fuels are terrible.
Just as much, if not more, oil is used as petrochemical inputs for fertilizers than would be used if we just the oil directly. Using petroleum directly is more energy efficient than growing corn, fertilizing it, harvesting it, processing and then finally transporting it.
To tie this into the Gulf and the oil volcano, the Gulf already was in not-so-good shape because of fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi River watershed and that of its tributaries.
There’s also the nasty issue of corn-based fuel driving up food prices and the problem of even less arable land to grow enough food for future population growth and/or increased exports to other countries.
The only reason ethanol is ever brought up as a serious alternative is because Iowa has the first presidential primary in the country. Energy issues and alternative fuels are yet ANOTHER reason to have a single national primary day.
Carney // Jun 9, 2010 at 10:28 am
easton, my numbers are accurate, and yours do not refute them. True, OPEC’s share of production does not match its share of reserves, but that is precisely why its control of the world market will only grow tighter – because it is expending its reserves at a slower rate than the non-OPEC producers. Your analogy to World War 2 is quite apt. In fact, the Axis powers not only suffered a great strategic disadvantage due to their oil deficiency, but that drove a great deal of their strategy – Japan’s attack on the Dutch East Indies, Germany driving for the Caucasus and fighting so hard for Stalingrad to secure its flank and sever the Volga fuel shipping lifeline, etc. Today the bulk of what’s left of world oil is held by our enemies.
Carney // Jun 9, 2010 at 10:55 am
hormelmeatco, the only major voice claiming a negative energy balance for ethanol is the team of Patzek (on oilman) and Pimentel (an extremist entomologist writing far outside his field of expertise, like the linguist Chomsky on geopolitics), most prominently the latter. They are extreme outliers in the literature, and are swiftly and devastatingly refuted by others in the refereed literature. Pimentel for example used 40 year outdated statistics, fatally flawed assumptions (like assuming ethanol corn is irrigated; it isn’t), etc. The issue has been settled as much as anything is in science by a comprehensive study published in Science (the most prestigious peer-reviewed journal in the world, along with Nature) in January 2006, which after reviewing the entire existing body of published research on the subject proved that even with Pimentel’s bad data one gets at least 5 units of ethanol per unit of petroleum, and with proper data and mainstream models one gets at least 10 and even 20 units. But really, you just need common sense, not a pinnacle publication, to figure this out. If ethanol took more energy to make than it yields its price would be sky-high, requiring subsidies greater than its retail price. But its subsidy is only about 50 cents a gallon, less than a fourth of its retail price, and even than just offsets the price increasing effect of the tariff walling out cheap foreign ethanol. Thus, claiming a negative energy balance for ethanol is just innumerate.
On the oil-cartel funded food vs. fuel myth, a few facts. Only half of US arable land is farmland, and well under half that land is actually cultivated. Per acre outputs rise relentlessly, up over 17% since 2002 alone, and Iowa now produces more corn than the entire 1940s USA. But rural population is collapsing, especially among young adults who leave due to the lack of jobs. We pay farmers not to farm, because the cornucopia they flood the world with is already so excessive as to threaten a total collapse of farm prices and of family farms. The EU is in the same situation, and the Third World is walled off from our markets and has no incentive to abandon inefficient and subsistence agriculture. In other words there is a vast room for expansion both in cropland, manpower, and output to meet biofuel demand without at all affecting food volume. In fact, by diverting our fuel import dollars from our Mideast enemies to poor tropical farmers, we enable the latter to farm cash crops, earn hard currency, and enter modernity. The $600 billion we spent on imported oil in 2008 would crush the combined total world foreign aid budget of $60 billion (US, UN, EU, Catholic Church, Oxfam, etc).
Finally, the other great alcohol fuel, methanol, can be made from natural gas (methane), coal, or ANY BIOMASS without exception, including crop residues (cobs, stems, leaves, multiplying the per-acre fuel yield), fast-regrowing weed plants (kudzu, water hyacinths, etc that need to be cleared anyway), trash, even sewage.
Alcohol burns much more cleanly, producing no smoke, soot, or particulate matter, the source of smog that fouls the air over car-dependent sprawl cities like Houston and L.A. and which kills 40,000 Americans a year according to W.’s EPA. It produces no sulfur, the source of acid rain. Unlike the aromatics in gasoline (benzene, etc.) it is neither a carcinogen nor a mutagen. And if spilled in water, it dissolves on its own (as any bartender could tell you) rather than needing dispersants, and then is readily biodegradable, consumed by natural bacteria who break it down into harmless components.
pnwguy // Jun 9, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Carney:
The one downside to either methanol or ethanol fuel for transportation needs not discussed much, production inputs aside, seems to be distribution. Because both compounds will absorb water and not separate from it, it currently can’t be shipped via pipeline, which is a huge part of the distribution system from refinery to fuel rack. I don’t know all of the issues of physics in pipeline delivery and how/where water becomes a factor. But I’ve heard this from various people in the fuels industry. Do you have any particular insight?
balconesfault // Jun 9, 2010 at 1:12 pm
pwnguy … the water problem is more a function of how ethanol is terminaled, since that’s where water gets in (not in the pipeline). Another major problem with ethanol and pipeline transport is that it is very corrosive, leading to stress corrosion cracking. I think that Valero has completed a few small ethanol pipelines using special technology to date.
That said, it does look like Magellan has plans for a very long (1700 mile) ethanol pipeline.
hormelmeatco // Jun 9, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@Carney:
“a few facts.”
Gasoline has a heat of combustion of 46kJ/g. Ethanol has 28. Even if gasoline and ethanol were on equal footing in terms of the amount of energy required for their production, ethanol still loses.
Everything you’re talking about is great, fine and dandy, except things that have already happened in the real world prove just about all of it wrong.
Carney // Jun 10, 2010 at 9:43 am
On pipelines and such, every filling station in the entire nation of Brazil has an ethanol pump. The economic, logistical and engineering issues of transporting ethanol to retail locations are clearly not show-stoppers. And, hormelmeatco, that’s some “real world” happenings for you.
And hormelmeatco, as for energy content per unit of volume, yes, gasoline has more, so with ethanol you’d have to have bigger fuel tanks (note that alcohol is safer, less likely to explode in crashes which is why the Indy 500 changed to alcohol in the 60s), or with the same size tank you’d need to fill up maybe 3 times a month if now you fill up twice a month. Nothing is without trade-offs, and that’s the major one with ethanol. But really, so what?
Let’s do a quick mental exercise. Assume alcohol fuel is our current default, standard fuel, and some oily type sidles up to convince you to support the US and the world switching to gasoline instead. Why, you can go further on a single tank! What a miracle? Any downsides? Well –
The sparkling clear air of car-dependent cities like Houston and L.A. will become fouled with a deadly haze, which will 40,000 of us each year;
We will endure massive catastrophes at sea, and leaks from filling stations will be toxic instead of essentially benign;
More of us will die on the road in agony from fire;
Our fuel supply will be dominated by a cartel of tyrannies, which will hold the Sword of Damocles of an embargo over our heads at all times, raise our “taxes” hundreds of billions without our consent, crashing our economy, and instead of spending that money on our health care, education, infrastructure, or defenses, squander our hard-earned wealth in the most obscene wallowing in luxury in human history, as well as on spreading and supplying a fanatical death cult bent on murdering as many of us as physically possible.
But hey, you can fill up twice a month instead of three times, or roll a bit further down the road on the same size tank!
Would you be enough of a sucker to take the deal, to make the switch to gasoline?
hormelmeatco // Jun 10, 2010 at 12:49 pm
“Would you be enough of a sucker to take the deal, to make the switch to gasoline?”
Absolutely. More oil gets used producing ethanol than would be used if oil was used directly.
I am going to bet that you’re a corn farmer.
Carney // Jun 10, 2010 at 1:37 pm
hormelmeatco, I just showed (and cited for you) that the claim of more petroleum input vs. output is false, and in fact has not only been decisively proven false, including in the most authoritative way and venue possible, but is also obviously false to any layman who uses common sense to consider the matter briefly. Either you did not read the first paragraph of my post yesterday at 10:55am EDT, or you operate in bad faith, refusing to allow evidence and reason to affect your claimed views. Which is it?
Moreover, I am not a corn farmer, and have several major disagreements with the corn lobby on energy policy. I favor a flex-fuel mandate in order to make all new cars fully flex-fueled; they prefer to squander their political capital pushing for retail gasoline’s ethanol content to rise from 10 to 15%. I favor methanol taking a major complementary role alongside ethanol in a post-petroleum future; they ignore methanol. I favor dropping our stupid tariffs that wall out cheap foreign ethanol; they seek to retain them.
hormelmeatco // Jun 10, 2010 at 4:32 pm
“I just showed (and cited for you) that the claim of more petroleum input vs. output is false”
Sigh….
http://drop.io/36msqea
Look at Table 2. Per 1L of 99.5% ethanol, it takes 6,597kcal of energy input, whereas the output is only 5,130kcal. 95% and lower concentrations are probably worse. While they don’t require as much distillation, they aren’t as pure either.
Ethanol, with a lower energy content, could be more energy-efficient than gasoline overall if not that much energy was required to produce it. As I said before, if they’re EQUAL, ethanol loses. If ethanol production’s energy efficiency is LESS, it’s a net energy loser.
Find the actual full-text articles from Science and Nature and look at what they included as the inputs for corn-growing.
As I said before, oil companies have absolutely no interest in destroying biofuels. They have every reason to support them, because more of their product gets used.
“I favor a flex-fuel mandate in order to make all new cars fully flex-fueled; they prefer to squander their political capital pushing for retail gasoline’s ethanol content to rise from 10 to 15%.”
If there should be a mandate for anything, it should be for plug-in hybrids.
Carney // Jun 10, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Wait, so after I explain to you at some length that Pimentel and Patzek are notorious for their shoddy papers, repudiated by the entire rest of the field (I won’t say “their colleagues” because neither rises to the level of being a peer of the rest), and gave a few examples of why their claims of energy inputs are nonsense, you respond…. by simply posting a paper from Pimentel and Patzek?
As for plug-in hybrids, they have the tiny disadvantage of costing a backbreakingly higher amount than a normal ICE car. Flex fuel is effectively a free feature.
hormelmeatco // Jun 10, 2010 at 5:59 pm
“you respond…. by simply posting a paper from Pimentel and Patzek?”
Just saying that Pimentel and Patzek’s work is shoddy doesn’t refute it.
What’s wrong with their methodologies or how they collected their data and calculated the results?
“repudiated by the entire rest of the field”
You haven’t cited anything yet. Saying that a paper proves them wrong when you didn’t post a link isn’t citing it. Where are these mythical, famed Science and Nature articles?
“they have the tiny disadvantage of costing a backbreakingly higher amount than a normal ICE car.”
In the long run, it’s cheaper and a hell of a lot cleaner.
Carney // Jun 11, 2010 at 10:50 am
hormelmeatco, here is the study published in “Science” (I never claimed a similar one was published in “Nature”, just that those two are the two top journals in the world):
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5760/506
The paper addresses several issues, and the language is careful, dry, restrained (as befits a formal paper) – and, when it does address Pimentel/Patzek, devastating.
Now look at this chart – no other modern-day writer on ethanol shares their conclusions about ethanol’s energy balance:
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/pdfs/43835.pdf (page 4).
Not only that, they have had the humiliation of their methodology being publicly corrected:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/brief_comparison_pimentel_patzek.pdf
Pimentel’s “greatest hit” paper, published in 2001, is riddled with glaring errors. It was almost immediately (2002) refuted by MSU’s Butler, who unlike Pimentel, an entomologist, is an actual credentialed expert in chemical engineering and is thus qualified in the field. Among the many problems Butler pointed out (and I am quoting Zubrin here):
“• Pimentel’s corn yields date from 1992 (and are thus underestimated):
• Pimentel’s figures for energy required to produce ethanol and the ethanol yield date from 1979, and his figures for energy to produce fertilizer are 1990 world values per the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) – not recent US values (and thus grossly overestimated).
• Pimentel assumes all corn is irrigated (only 16 percent is, and virtually no irrigated corn is converted to ethanol). This last point is a very large error, since Pimentel assigns huge energy costs for ethanol crop irrigation.
• Pimentel fails to assign any energy credit for the high protein animal feed produced as a by-product of ethanol production. (Most of the protein value of the corn crop used for ethanol is preserved, and used as an animal feed to produce meat. If the ethanol were not being produced, most of the energy required to grow the feed would have to be expended anyway.”
Etc etc
Notwithstanding his non-expert status, if Pimentel were a disinterested academic, his errors would be random, but they are relentlessly biased against ethanol. That in turn fits with his other kookery – opposing all pesticides and modern agriculture in general is just the start.
He made the wild claim in one paper that “40% of world deaths can be attributed to various environmental factors, especially including organic and chemical pollutants.” He has denounced dogs and cats as “alien species” in America. He wants to eliminate two-thirds of Earth’s population via “democratically determined population control” and to slash the American standard of living in half.
Why would conservative and free market think tanks continue spam around the long-discredited writings of a Malthusian zealot? Well, they take a lot of oil money…
Carney // Jun 11, 2010 at 11:09 am
hormelmeatco, I posted a response that’s being held up in moderation, no doubt due to the links.
yodecat // Jun 11, 2010 at 12:01 pm
In the grand scheme of oil markets, whether we drill or not has little impact on the price of oil. We don’t ‘keep our oil’, it’s all sold on the world market. It is not like coal.
The future of energy in the US is natural gas, “renuables” and thorium reactors. The sooner we hop to it, the better.
hormelmeatco // Jun 14, 2010 at 10:42 pm
@Carney:
Your link to the Science article has a paywall.
“Pimentel fails to assign any energy credit for the high protein animal feed produced as a by-product of ethanol production.”
If we’re going to include byproducts and not just fuel in the energy balance calculations, oil would absolutely destroy corn. Do you really want to go down that road?
“He has denounced dogs and cats as “alien species” in America.”
On that, he’s right. Dogs, cats, horses, wheat, onions, rice and many other animals and crops aren’t native to the Americas. Not the most tactful way to say it, but that’s hardly a kooky observation to make.