Fully maximizing the opportunities presented by the American energy revolution will require a concerted national effort that prioritizes investment in the development of advanced energy technologies—such as low-cost advanced batteries for electric vehicles and more-efficient home refueling units for natural gas vehicles—along with continued growth in domestic energy production. The volatility of oil prices, the presence of anticompetitive forces like OPEC, and the political and fiscal risks to significant and sustained energy-related research and development create an acute need for strong leadership from Washington if we are to capitalize on this moment.
Yet important philosophical differences now divide the major political parties on energy and environmental policies. Pretending such differences do not exist, or dismissing them as petty politics, defies reality and prevents progress on the pressing challenge of oil security.
To move forward, we suggest establishing oil displacement as a national goal. Such a target would advance the goals of robust economic growth, improved environmental protection and effective foreign policy. Best of all, a national consensus on reducing oil dependence should be possible without the resolution of the energy and environmental issues that will continue to be debated for some time.
It would be nice if we had people running the country who understood business. And technology.
They fought it every step of the way and will continue, but will be happy to take credit (and already have.)
It almost sounds like WSJ is advocating a centrally planned energy initiative. Well I suppose it works for space, it should work really well for energy. It shows how easy it is to slip into dictating policy when it’s an issue you care about. Of course the right policy is to remove as much regulation as possible and let the market decide what technologies are important. If you push for advanced batteries by offering government funding, you’ll get lots of professors tying themselves in knots to link their research to advanced batteries. I can see it now; “Amazon Tree Frog Saliva Electrolyte for Advanced Batteries.”
Excellent argument against big government. Not only should we push back every time and twice as hard, but from every direction as well. This is going to be a long uphill slog.
It would be nice if we had people running the country who understood business. And technology.
No it wouldn’t. Their incompetence is the only thing keeping us alive.
It’s be nice if no-one was “running the country”.
Who is always right? But thanks for making a very astute point Trent. It is so easy to fall into ‘lefty thought’ [oxymoron alert] because it’s so pervasive. I hate that I catch myself doing it (and depend on you guys to knock me on the side of the head when you see me do it.)
I think we need a central, inter-agency linked Web site to deal with this. One stop shopping for your total energy needs — electricity, hot water, heat, and automotive fuel. Something like “Energysupply.gov.”
…or perhaps non governmental entrepreneur(s) could take care of that?
Non-governmental entreneurs. From Canada. With personal connections to the First Family.
“It would be nice if we had people running the country who understood business. And technology.”
Are you criticizing the Authors of this opinion piece?
Yes, DN-Guy, unlike the lemmings on the left, Rand appreciates people that think independently. Trent is not always right, but when he is he brings a scalpel to the argument.
“Mr. Shultz served as Secretary of State, Treasury and Labor, and as director of the Office of Management and Budget, between 1969-89. Mr. Smith is the founder, chairman, president and CEO of FedEx Corporation.”
It just appears Rand is criticizing the founder of one of the most innovative companies of the 20th century and Reagan’s Secretary of State.
In Rand’s version of America, blogger criticizes . . . you!
What you don’t know is I crave criticism because I see it as an opportunity to grow. Once you’ve been criticized by the big dawg, Rand (because I actually care what Rand has to say) everybody else is the cute toy pooch.
Taking criticism is important. Something the left can’t tolerate of themselves.
Only perfect beings are beyond criticism. Believe me, you aren’t perfect.
I’m just wondering if Rand really thinks Fred Smith doesn’t understand Business or Technology?
I’m just wondering if Rand thinks George Schultz doesn’t understand Business, technology or government?
Or did Rand think someone else wrote this op-ed?
You wonder lots of idiotic things, which is why we rarely bother to respond.
The subheading refutes much of the article. Yes, it is possible to end US dependence on imported oil by continuing to develop oil supplies here. So why bring in the political dispute regarding switching to alternative fuels and electric cars? Personally, if anyone mentions electric cars without nuclear energy as a way to reduce carbon emissions (another political argument introduced by the authors) then I can’t take them seriously. Other fuels and “flex fuels” have been an effort for decades now. The latest flex fuel blend of ethanol and gasoline lead to a shift in crop yields from feeding the hungry to powering Navy ships at absurdly high cost. That’s a political discussion as a free market would not have accepted those costs.
But by all means, if you need a politician to tell you how and what to think; feel free to self identify as an intellectual lightweight.
My thoughts as well.
Agreed, though other forms of carbon-neutral energy would also work – and least two of them have been shown to work at the top end of pilot scale. (Wave power and OTEC are the two I’m thinking of here.)
SPS and focus fusion are riskier, but if either of them work they are carbon-neutral as well.
I was in a hotel room with a better selection of TV channels than at home, flipping for the Packer game (They played the next day on Monday. And lost to the Bears. And lost their QB to a serious shoulder injury.)
I came across Valerie (yes, that Valerie) on CSPAN, moderating a panel of business bigwigs that included the CEO of Dow Chemical. The big beef was “infrastructure” as in “America’s crumbling infrastructure and we need to do something or we will lose our competitive edge.” I thought Ms. Jarrett was there to scold the bigwigs, but no, she was smiling and nodding in agreement.
So, the Administration usually doesn’t let Valerie out in public because she is more the “back room person” as Mr. Axelrod better knows how to sugarcoat the Administrations hard-level world view. What was the deal?
The deal was the same as all other deals: spending a lot more government money. Nevermind that there is private infrastructure (cough, Keystone Pipeline, cough) that is being held up. This is all about the gummint spending money on public works.
So as soon as I got home and then went in to work, someone had parked a late-40’s vintage car out in front of Engineering Hall where they Hybrid Team and the Formula SAE Race Car Team shows their cars. Cool, late-40’s classic cars!
Nope. It was a “political statement” with a big banner whining about “outdated infrastructure.” This is at a public university where you can’t even walk to work because the campus has been one giant construction project over the last 10 years.
So you work at a public university?
So you work at a public university?
So you ask questions which have already been answered. Let me guess. This is innuendo which is meant to imply that Paul is being hypocritical here and that Paul’s hypocrisy is more important than his message is.
I find it interesting how some people are more concerned about hypocrisy than about actual moral conflicts. When taken to its absurd conclusion, it discredits anyone who has an opinion on how to improve the world or us since everyone takes advantage to some degree of flaws in our societies (often by necessity). I can’t have an opinion on road systems because I drive on them. I can’t have an opinion on firefighting, national security, or entitlements because I can benefit from them.
Ultimately, this search for hypocrisy is just another ad hominem attack. I would point out that if someone were actually being deeply hypocritical about a societal wrong because they’re taking advantage of it, then that means that they most likely understand the issue very well. It doesn’t mean that their opinions are any good for a variety of reasons (such as conflict of interest), but they’re the people who probably understand that problem the best.
As long as plastics are important you will be dependent on oil.
Yep. Oil is ubiquitous in our lives.
Not true, Ed. We can always go back to baleen.
There are ways to replace all petroleum based products AFAIK. The only issue is that it is usually anti-economic to do this. Ultimately you can synthesize everything from CO, H2O, and heat using the Fischer-Tropsch process and these feedstocks are not particularly rare to come by. The only issue is the tremendous amount of energy you need to do it. The closer the feedstocks are to the actual fuel you want to synthesize the less input energy you require. So for example Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of diesel from natural gas can be cost competitive with oil at current prices. In fact Qatar does this using plants by Sasol from South Africa. The South Africans had to resort to these processes during the Apartheid embargo where they had plenty of their own coal but no oil to speak, so they developed a coal to diesel and later a natural gas to diesel process, in order to run their transportation infrastructure under the embargo. They dusted off WWII era tech and improved on it. They are most likely the current leaders in the technology.
The US did a lot of pioneering work in the area decades ago but there is no significant investment in production hardware right now. Last I heard the US Navy had a program to synthesize fuel from sea water in order to minimize their logistics trail. A nuclear carrier generates enough heat to do the process. It will probably be canceled as usual.
Plastics can be replaced with similar materials based on wood and plastic can be recycled somewhat so it is not that big of a deal. The major issue is probably some medicine production but even that could use synthesized oil albeit at a higher cost to the end user. I still remember as a kid when we used glass bottles for most drinks and recycling those was a matter of the producer washing them down and refilling them once again Today they break the glass down and make new bottles. Not exactly energy efficient…
There is enough private capital in the US to make large energy investments. For the most part state intervention is not required. Replacing the current oil based transportation infrastructure in the US does not make sense given the new shale oil resource and the existing tar sands resources in Canada and Venezuela. The US should make it a policy to ease access to those resources in the Americas as a long term strategic goal from my point of view. Replacing the transportation vehicles with electrics is something that economics alone will decide. If the batteries get cheap enough and the price of oil does not come down significantly this is bound to happen. From my point of view it makes more sense to mandate improved vehicle fuel consumption for new vehicles. There is a lot which can be done to reduce gasoline consumption from direct fuel injection to stop-start systems, or micro hybrids, etc.
However I think it is stupid not to pursue coal and nuclear in those states where it makes economic sense just for petty pseudo-environmentalist reasons. If there is a vast coal mine in that state why not build a coal power plant there? If transporting coal or natural gas is too expensive, why not use nuclear? And yes why not use wind and solar power where it makes sense. No need to have mandates. Or even worse feed-in tariffs.
My fear is that people are banking too much on natural gas in the US. Historically natural gas prices vary wildly. It may be cheap now but in 5-10 years? Probably not.
Plastics can be replaced with similar materials based on wood
Yep, we can use baleen!
Whatever. We had bakelite and celluloid before we had plastics and there are better versions available now.
With enough energy, you can do anything. But, A) we do not have infinite supplies of energy and B) the opportunity costs are staggering – we could be doing far better things with that energy.
Why in the world would we hobble ourselves by engaging in such ventures? I can be perfectly mobile without my legs using modern mobility devices, but that is no reason for me to amputate my legs.
Of course. Which is why shale oil and tar sands will dominate for the foreseeable future.
As for infrastructure I agree the US needs to rebuild a lot of infrastructure or even make new infrastructure. Every single time I go to the US passenger railroads, cellphone coverage and bandwidth, and fossilized payment systems keep reminding me that I’m not on Europe. Well that and the constant smell of gasoline instead of diesel. But there are historic reasons for that being the case. Namely US refining infrastructure is too freaking old and it does not produce as much diesel fraction from the petroleum as a brand new refinery would. So gasoline it is. Of course since everyone agrees that petroleum is on the way out, seemingly even the petroleum industry, which for whatever reason refuses to upgrade the refineries, this will continue to be the case.
Then there are the old continental electric supergrid proposals. Have not heard about those for nearly a decade.
petroleum is on the way out, seemingly even the petroleum industry, which for whatever reason refuses to upgrade the refineries, this will continue to be the case.
Ummm, the reason is? If you keep telling me that petroleum is on the way out, why would I spend huge amounts of money to upgrade my plant, when I can just ride it into the ground, making money until the end?
And forget the fact that the government requires any new construction to meet vastly different standards than the currently operating equipment.
And forget the fact that the government requires any new construction to meet vastly different standards than the currently operating equipment.
That’s the whole point! You can increase the diesel fuel fraction and remove the sulfur, known cause of heart problems, from the fuel in the new plants.
Then there are the old continental electric supergrid proposals. Have not heard about those for nearly a decade.
For a damn good reason. A continental grid would be very unwieldy and extremely hard to keep control of AND very easy to sabotage. It would be another bureaucratic nightmare that would make frequent long term blackouts a reality. The current regional grid system we have now is much more flexible and robust. It used to be even more when we still had vertically integrated utilities, but now no one wants to put money into the transmission grid because they neither control it nor profit from it.
“Namely US refining infrastructure is too freaking old and it does not produce as much diesel fraction from the petroleum as a brand new refinery would. So gasoline it is. Of course since everyone agrees that petroleum is on the way out, seemingly even the petroleum industry, which for whatever reason refuses to upgrade the refineries, this will continue to be the case.”
Yes, and whose fault is that (I am not blaming you).
Valerie gets on CSPAN to get some chemical industry CEOs begging for a good spanking (oh, hurt me, hurt me!) whining about infrastructure, but the Administration has been standing aside all of the private infrastructure yelling “Stop!” When I see Ms. Jarrett smiling and nodding about some CEO complaining about U.S. infrastructure, I reach down and make sure my wallet is still there . . .
“Ultimately you can synthesize everything from CO, H2O, and heat using the Fischer-Tropsch process ”
Really? Really!
Try telling that to the U.S. military that wanted to build F-T plants as an (admittedly expensive) way of 1) running our ships and airplanes and “forward force projection” if the oil prices went Alpha Sierra or if imports were embargoed, and 2) jump start a domestic synthetic fuels program by creating a market.
Like the geezer-Liberal-in-sneakers Dad-of-Jeff-Goldbloom character in “Independence Day”, we can’t nuke the aliens, that might cause Nuclear Winter! There are these aliens threatening to take us over and we can’t use nukes because of the Environment (according to Hollywood).
We can’t build F-T plants as a Defense program that might prevent the end of life in America as we know it because that might bring on Climate Change! The F-T plants might only be used in case of war, but if we are fighting for the survival of our nation in the manner of England in the Battle of Britain, we have to do it without emitting excess CO2.
I’m not particularly concerned about CO2 “emissions”. In fact I find the whole concept ridiculous. There are environmental rules that makes sense like not putting lead and arsenic on the water supply, or trying to reduce carbon monoxide and sulfur. Adding filters for dioxins and things like that. But regulating a perfectly benign byproduct like CO2 is plainly nonsense.
The F-T plants are not being built because they are expensive. e.g. Qatar refuses to disclose numbers on how cost effective their operation is and there were rumors of the whole thing getting canceled more than once. In other words it can be done. It just won’t be done because it is not economic especially now with shale oil and tar sands coming online. Which is perfectly ok to me. Ultimately I think cars will go electric for more than one reason but the longer the time we have for the batteries to improve the better. Last thing we need is yet another oil shock. And the batteries will improve even if its on the strength of mobile devices energy requirements alone.
As for Independence Day they did try the nukes the issue is they just did not make any dent in the aliens energy shields. 🙂
Did not!
The air-to-air missiles of Will Smith’s Marine F/A-18 flight bounced off the alien deflectors. Judd Hirsch — the Liberal geezer in sneakers — made a fuss when the President was going to authorize nukes. At that point, they landed at Area 51 where they met up with Brent Spiner where the President learned that Area 51 had been harboring dead aliens that the scientists have been studying (“we don’t get out much”) , where Jeff Goldblum came up with a plan of getting the aliens to lower their shields by planting a computer virus with an Apple laptop.
Much is made regarding the suspension of disbelief that Goldblum’s Powerbook would have been compatible with the alien systems to plant a virus. The whole point is that Brent Spiner had been working on hacking the alien tech since the crashed spaceship in the late 1940’s.
In a 50’s movie, they would have nuked the aliens and the nuclear explosion would have been futile or it would have made the aliens even more powerful. In “Independence Day”, made in Hollywood’s politically correct era (the deal with Sigourney Weaver wanting to nuke some other aliens took place in a distant future where PC doesn’t apply), no nukes were ever used.
Sheesh, don’t you guys watch movies?
Paul,
A B-2 fires a nuke at the ship sitting over Houston. There was a NBC truck sitting at what was supposed to be I-45 exit to University of Houston waiting to see what happened: not a dent.
OK, so they tied up Judd Hirsch and fired a nuke.
They really went about it the wrong way. These aliens could read minds. So feed them liberals… sure to cause mental collapse.