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Friday, April 28, 2006
Got Gas?
No, that is not a bumper sticker.
The entire country seems to be massively exercised over gasoline prices these past couple of years. To anyone with an economics background, recent events would appear inevitable. Two major population nodes, India and China, have been industrializing at a rapid rate, and therefore have been competing with the developed world for energy resources. Enviro-Nazis have succeeded in choking off essentially all development of new petroleum finds, no matter where they might be. (They've also succeeded in preventing the expansion of American refining capacity.) The Middle East is no longer a reliable, stable supplier of crude oil, Mexico is suffering great instabilities of all sorts, Britain is committing slow suicide in its own, very British way, and Venezuela...well, let's just not go there.
If oil and gas production are flat but demand is rising, what else could we expect but steady increases in price?
Some have hoisted the banner of alternative energy sources. True, any practical substitute for oil or gas would lower demand for those things, and hence help to relieve the pressure on their prices. But what alternatives are there? Electrical power must be generated from some source; the most efficient starting points are water power, burning fossil fuels, or nuclear fission. The green bigots have forbidden all nuclear power development, have placed insupportably costly regulations on the use of coal, and would wet their pants at the idea of a new hydropower dam marring one of their beloved rivers. Even wind-power farms are being blocked by the BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody) crowd. So the plants that provide the watts that keep our computers hot and our beer cold will continue to compete with our cars and heating oil tanks for that precious black sludge.
The word your Curmudgeon has gotten terminally sick of hearing is "conservation:"
Conservation, by definition, is a short-term emergency measure. If you are in a lifeboat with seven people and only one jar of water, you conserve it, meaning you dole it out by drops to the group until all are rescued. But to demand of a giant industrial nation that it "conserve" energy without simultaneously offering an ultimate rescue plan is insanity. The unstated implication of [such a] law [is] simply that we [have] become helplessly dependent on the extortionist OPEC nations for our very survival and, should our relations with them go awry, we would die. [Former Treasury Secretary and Energy Czar William E. Simon, in A Time For Truth, writing of the 1973-1975 OPEC Oil Embargo]
This should be self-explanatory. The steady climb of petroleum product prices these past twenty years heralds a steadily intensifying demand-competition for oil and its successor products. If we regard Mankind as a single man and oil as his nourishment, if current conditions continue, the price curves foretell his death by starvation. If Man is to live, his alternatives are the development of new energy sources, including both the fossil fuels and the alternatives to them, or his slow and agonizing demise. There are no others.
Viewed thus, the hard-line environmentalists who seek to prevent any increase in petroleum extraction or refining are the enemies of the human race. Indeed, they seem to relish the title. Paul Ehrlich, Jeremy Rifkin, and Amory Lovins have several times each said that they favored a reduction in world energy supplies. Ehrlich and Rifkin were appalled when the "cold fusion" developments of the late Eighties were announced:
Ehrlich: "It's the worst thing that could happen to our planet!"
Rifkin: "It would be like giving a machine gun to an idiot child."
Lovins, in a notorious interview with Playboy magazine, had said:
If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other. [Amory Lovins, Playboy interview, Nov/Dec 1977]
These are the icons of the environmentalism movement. If they sound like the sort of persons from whom you would be disposed to seek edification, stay far away from your Curmudgeon; he's armed and has had a very bad week.
If America is to continue to climb the curve of technological advance, hopefully culminating in a society powered by the ultimately cheap, clean and flexible source of energy -- nuclear fusion, which would give us transmutation of the elements as a "spinoff" -- we must continue to seek out, extract, and refine the petroleum gifts of the Earth. As the prices of oil and gas advance, and ordinary people find it increasingly difficult to heat their homes and drive their cars, they will grow very tired of the self-righteous pseudo-moralizing of the save-the-Earth crowd. At some point, when hundreds or thousands of Americans have died of exposure to the cold and the shortfall of petroleum has precipitated a nationwide depression, anyone who dares to suggest that further energy exploration, extraction, or refinement is unacceptable for some moss-and-dirt-worshipping reason will find himself ornamenting the end of a rope.
Your Curmudgeon has recently "done his bit" to accelerate the Day of Cleansing Rage:
(Only 16 miles to the gallon...but what a sound system!)
Write your Congressclown today.
Comments
Nice ride Francis.
Posted by on 04/28/2006 at 05:48 PMCongrats on a sweet ride. You worked for it, you earned it, now enjoy!
Posted by og on 04/28/2006 at 06:25 PMHey, I actually have an economics background, but wouldn’t agree with that there has been a “steady” rise in oil prices. As late as 1999, oil was trading at just $12/barrel. That was down over 50% from just a few years earlier. However, since ‘99, oil has quintupled from that price. Overall, there is tremendous volatility, whether there is a war in the Middle East or not.
Posted by Shawn on 04/28/2006 at 06:32 PMI live in a very rural part of North Carolina where, if you own a home, you need a truck. I’ve lidded the bed, put on a high-tech air filter, and my beloved presented me with a cat-back dual exhaust (it was a Christmas gift; fifteen years ago, the sweet rumble would be the sound of me losing my license). In other words, I’ve done what I can to increase the mileage on a ‘utility’ vehicle. So I too am sick of the conservation mantra. This country runs on energy; it’s how we power the improvements we make to the material human condition. I believe we need to get on the stick with nuclear powered plants, drill for oil anywhere and everywhere we can and encourage the tinkerers and inventors to go innovatively crazy.
As for the enviro-Nazis, rope, tree, some assembly required, your mileage may vary.
Fran, didja get satellite in that pretty baby?
Posted by on 04/29/2006 at 01:38 AMCan I retain you as energy and execution consultant?
Posted by Vanderleun on 04/29/2006 at 04:06 PM"the plants that provide the watts...will continue to compete with our cars and heating oil tanks for that precious black sludge"--actually, very little electrical power generation uses oil as a fuel. Most of it is coal or natural gas, with hydropower and nuclear playing supporting roles.
Posted by David Foster on 04/30/2006 at 12:27 AMCan you provide details, David? In my part of the country, oil is the dominant fuel for electrical power generation, though I’d have no trouble believing that we’re exceptions.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 04/30/2006 at 06:06 AMHere are some statistics: coal 50%, natural gas 18%, nuclear 20%, hydro 6%, oil 3%. (I thought I remembered gas being considerably higher--it’s probably good that it’s not)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html
Posted by David Foster on 04/30/2006 at 11:06 AMSo sorry to hear that you’re bothered by the word “conservation.” However, we are indeed in the lifeboat, with no rescuers on the horizon, so conservation would be a wise thing to consider. Instead: “enviro-Nazis” will find their reward at the end of a rope.
But what else would I expect from someone who just proudly bought a gas guzzler?
Anyone who thinks that our energy woes are due to lack of refineries, or lack of extraction, is sadly deluded. Our problem arises from consuming energy and natural resources at a non-sustainable rate. We are a profligate, wasteful society.
I’m new to this blog, having just wandered over from Wolcott’s place, but there seems to be a Christian thread evident. So the question is: did Jesus not encourage moderation? Did He not preach against wastefulness, against greed, against profligacy and materialism? How do you square this with your disdain for conservation?
Just askin’.........
Posted by on 05/01/2006 at 01:58 PMGee if the mob is out hanging tree huggers for opposing exploration, just think what they’ll do to the fat asses they catch driving Hummers and Expeditions around the block?
Posted by on 05/01/2006 at 02:13 PMNecktie Party?
there are plenty of Hummer, Yukon, and Expedition owners in my neighborhood who would look fabulous wearing a rope necktie.
Neckties for the CEO’s of ExxonMobil would also be a fabulous idea, but why stop there, the ExxonMobil stockholders surely wouldn’t mind paying a “necktie fee” for the obscene profits they have been pocketing.
Bring on the neckties.
Posted by on 05/01/2006 at 02:53 PMIf I had a car that ran on ethanol, and I could buy ethanol for $6/gal, I’d be happy to do it. I’m really tired of being held hostage by Saudi Arabia and Exxon/Mobil (or was that redundant?)
Posted by Tony on 05/01/2006 at 04:12 PM”...did Jesus not encourage moderation? Did He not preach against wastefulness, against greed, against profligacy and materialism?”
Actually, He didn’t have anything to say about worldly things. His preachments were about love of God and the proper treatment of one’s fellows. The one and only episode that might bear on such matters was when He chased the merchants out of the temple: “Get out. Stop turning My house into a marketplace.” But that was about keeping things in their appropriate places, not a denunciation of “greed,” the left-liberals’ favorite term of condemnation.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 05/01/2006 at 06:37 PMActually, He didn’t have anything to say about worldly things.
You’re kidding right? Familiar with Mt. 6:19? How about Mt. 19:23, 24? Or how about St. Paul’s opinion in 1 Timothy 6:10? Not the words of Jesus, but pretty much the heart of the Christian tradition. Funny I don’t recall anywhere in the New Testament where lynching is advocated, but I could be wrong.
Posted by on 05/01/2006 at 07:06 PMAll right, let’s have a look at the verses you cited.
Matthew 6:19-20
“Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
I don’t see this as a counsel to some particular standard of moderation or avoidance of profligacy, but rather as a counsel to place spiritual treasures above temporal ones—i.e., not to sacrifice the life of the spirit to the things of the earth. The language is arguably interpretable in other ways.
Matthew 19:23-24:
“Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
The critical questions here are why? and how does the context color this? The rich of Judea in Christ’s time were mostly morally compromised, either with the ruling elite of the priesthood or with the Roman occupation. But one can also legitimately suggest that Christ did not depend on that context—that He intended the statement to apply more widely than to first-century Judea. In which case one must ask: what about wealth would make it hard for a rich man to find salvation?
The answer is gluttony: the obsession with material things. Yet one can be rich yet not be a glutton, just as one can be fat yet not be an overeater. Riches themselves don’t condemn a man; they merely add to the array of temptations to neglect the life of the spirit he must face. Note how many of Christ’s parables feature rich and upright men, and ponder why He would have chosen such examples to illustrate his themes. Ponder also the Parable of the Talents, and the Parable of the Sower, and what they signify for the serious, respectful treatment of the things of this world.
As for Saint Paul, his sentiments, while always worth considering, are considerably less authoritative than those of Christ.
I’ve done you the courtesy of taking your objections seriously, and contending with you politely. I hope you appreciate it. Some of your confreres have been considerably less than polite in consuming my server space and bandwidth. It’s put a strain on my benevolence that I could do without.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 05/01/2006 at 07:49 PMUh, oh, Wolcott’s Wombats Inbound!
Posted by Vanderleun on 05/01/2006 at 10:37 PMMy dear Mr. Porretto,
When you end a post wherein you tout your expensive gas-guzzling SUV hoping that Christians such as myself, who care about the environment, end up ornamenting the end of a rope I find it a little hard to take your rejection of two thousand years of tradition seriously. Do you seriously think the Desert Fathers thought Jesus’ injunction to invest one’s talents in spiritual wealth to be a justification for material gain? Do you think the monks of Mt. Athos or the Little Sisters of the Poor consider this sound doctrine?
I’ll grant you sarcastic hyperbole for your crassness, but, considering the eagerness of your readership to advocate lynching I think your rhetoric could use a little polishing.
Posted by on 05/01/2006 at 11:11 PMGee, Phil, you sound exactly like the sort of person who, “when hundreds or thousands of Americans have died of exposure to the cold and the shortfall of petroleum has precipitated a nationwide depression,” would “suggest that further energy exploration, extraction, or refinement is unacceptable for some moss-and-dirt-worshipping reason,” if I may quote myself.
Quite frankly, bro, if you place the “well being” of moss, rocks, and tundra ahead of that of human beings, you’re no Christian by my lights. Nor do I feel any need to answer your fatuous scurrilities. But no doubt you take comfort in your moral superiority to the rest of us. Well, the Son of God went to the Cross to save Mankind, and no doubt He meant to include us both. I suppose one should take some perspective from that.
Have a nice life.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 05/02/2006 at 04:53 AM
