RSS Feed MenuClick here for all of David Frum’s blogposts on Mitt Romney’s “No Apology”.
The headline on Romney’s energy policy is the ex-governor’s openness to restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. Like the rationalist he is, Romney prefers a revenue-neutral carbon tax to cap-and-trade. But more interesting than the headlines is the intelligent and frequently unconventional cast of mind revealed by Romney’s energy ideas. Here he is on “Drill here, drill now.”
Having begun by explaining that North America and especially the United States are comparatively oil-poor regions of the world earlier in the chapter, Romney now observes:
If we drill and pump the last available drop of oil from every domestic source, we may walk into a trap set by the oil oligopolists who would like nothing better than to watch us exhaust our own oil supplies now so we’ll become entirely beholden to them in the future. On the other hand, if we don’t drill, we risk aiding the oil cartels by increasing demand for their oil today, and watching helplessly as that demand drives world oil prices skyward – filling their coffers and emptying ours.
The solution to this dilemma may be to explore and develop oil from these new domestic locations, but also to carefully meter the amount of oil we actually produce from them in order to moderate the pricing power of the foreign cartels and to safeguard our long-term supply. In effect, the oil produced from these new sources would serve as a kind of supersize strategic oil reserve. And if very large oil reserves were discovered or if oil subsidies showed greater and earlier potential, we could open the spigot.
Noteworthy here:
Romney thinks about energy in strategic not market terms. As Romney displayed in his opening chapter, he is a man whose policy thought is built upon a perception of a world of competing great powers. The first job of government is to enhance the strength and power of the United States in this competition. That is the theme that links together his views on education, on economic policy, and yes on healthcare too – since the excess cost of healthcare burdens the United States in the power struggle between the great powers.
Romney belongs firmly to the Hamiltonian political tradition in the United States. That’s a conservative tradition too of course – but one at dangerous variance with the Jacksonian fervor of the Republican base.
sunroof // Mar 12, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I’ve not read Romney’s book, but it seems to me the most strategic use of oil is to get off it as much as possible as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the US only delays delivering itself into the hands of the oil oligarchs.
The Chinese seem to get it. Will we?
Carney // Mar 12, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I’ve finally gotten a chance to look at the book. The most maddening thing about it is that this very intelligent man falls prey to the muddled thinking and confusion that runs rampant in most discussions of energy policy.
The worst example of this is when in talking about energy independence / energy security / how to get off foreign oil, or oil in general, people (as Romney does in the book) begin touting solar, wind, tidal, nuclear, and other ways of generating electricity. Obama and McCain had such an argument in 2008, touting solar and nuclear respectively, and making complete asses of themselves in the process, because:
Unless you like in Hawaii, your electricity DOES NOT COME FROM OIL. 97% of electricity in the US comes from something other than oil (50% comes from coal, 20% each from nuclear and natural gas, 5% from hydro-electric dams, and 2% from all “green” sources – solar, wind, etc. – combined. ALL DOMESTIC.
We are ALREADY energy independent when it comes to electricity Therefore the various forms of electric power generation, green or otherwise, are NOT alternatives to oil, only alternatives to each other.
If you want to get off oil, stop yammering about stuff like solar, tidal, or geothermal that has nothing to do with oil.
The source of our addiction to oil is NOT in electricity generation. It’s in TRANSPORTATION FUEL, where 97% (coincidentally) of all our cars are locked in to being able to use only petroleum-derived fuel – gasoline or petro-diesel.
The best, cheapest, and easiest way to transition to something other than oil for our transportation fuel is to mandate that all new gasoline-burning cars sold in America be fully flex fueled — also able to use any alternate liquid fuel based on alcohol such as methanol or ethanol. For more, see http://energyvictory.net
Carney // Mar 12, 2010 at 2:18 pm
True, alcohol happens to be my preferred alternative to oil.
I would have been less disappointed and annoyed if Romney had pushed some less desirable or practical alternative TRANSPORTATION FUEL or motive power (as opposed to an electricity-generating technique) such as –
hydrogen fuel cells,
hydrogen in internal combustion engines,
battery electric vehicles,
compressed or liquid natural gas in internal combustion engines,
methanol-oxygen fuel cells,
or bio-diesel;
– while demonstrating his understanding that the energy issue has three problems (environmental, economic, and national security) and that of the two SEPARATE areas of energy (transportation and electricity generation), transportation has all three problems whereas electricity poses no national security problem and only a relatively minor economic problem.
Instead, for him, it’s all a big confused jumble with no clear distinctions, like with most people, including politicians.
Carney // Mar 12, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Even oil that is drilled, refined, transported, bought, and consumed exclusively in the US enriches our enemies, because oil is fungible and the world oil market acts in effect as a single entity. Every drop of oil we buy, wherever it is from, removes that oil from being available on the world market, makes available oil that much more scarce, and enables our enemies to charge that much more for the oil they sell. This is a crucial point and cannot be over – emphasized in any discussion of energy geo-strategy.
Both the Right, with “drill baby drill” and “drill here / drill now / pay less” and the Left with its focus on conservation and efficiency, are trying to reduce the enemy’s mischief budget by getting us to spend less on foreign oil. But both are wrong, doomed strategies.
The problem is that the enemy permanently controls the world oil market. OPEC has over 70% of world oil reserves, including all the cheapest, easiest-to-drill, most attractive stuff. We have only 3%. Thus they control world oil prices by turning the taps on and off.
Even if we shifted entirely to domestic oil (quite a feat, since we are 60% dependent on foreign oil right now), OPEC could just slash production to match its diminished sales to us, spike the per-unit price, and make just as much as before on reduced sales volume.
Similarly, even if we reduced our foreign oil purchases by dramatically cutting overall oil consumption via dramatic efficiency gains, again, OPEC could just slash its production levels, spike … you get the idea.
Not that conservation even works anyway. From 1976 to 1990, our average MPGs went up, thanks to CAFE from 13 to 20. A whopping increase. But despite being able to go the same distance on less fuel, our annual fuel use did not go down, but rather UP from 89 to 103 billion gallons. And half that timeframe was in recession or stagflation. If it had been a growth run, the increase would have been even more dramatic. Economic and population growth creates more cars, drivers, and miles driven, not just overall but on an per-capita basis, to such an extent as to swamp efficiency gains.
The oil game is permanently, unfixably rigged in our enemies’ favor. And it’s going to get worse – think about the automobilization of India and China, and skyrocketing demand for auto fuel.
The time to get the world off oil is now. And it doesn’t require a backbreaking Apollo or Manhattan Project scale effort. Just make the addition of a $130 per car feature – alcohol comptability or “flex fuel” capability – a required industry standard like seat belts. That’s called for in the Open Fuel Standards Act (S. 835 and H.R. 1476).
Austerity-pushing leftists and mandate-hating conservatives will squawk but it’s the only realistic and affordable way out.
sinz54 // Mar 13, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Carney: Just make the addition of a $130 per car feature – alcohol comptability or “flex fuel” capability – a required industry standard like seat belts.
It also requires expansion of the ethanol infrastructure–otherwise no one will be able to fill up on ethanol.
Ethanol is common in the farm states, obviously.
But in MA where I live, I haven’t seen even one filling station that offers ethanol. Will the big oil companies jump into the refining and transport of ethanol? Why should Gulf or ExxonMobil offer ethanol at their filling stations, two of those nearest my home? And what fleet of tanker trucks is going to transport ethanol from the farm states to MA?
Obama has appointed a group to look into how to make flex-fuel vehicles more popular. That will include dealing with the creation of a coast-to-coast network of ethanol stations.
I think that making ethanol available in every corner of the nation will require a mandate, just like the mandates for different blends of gasoline that we have now.