Editorial comment

	Vol. 229 No.9
PERRY A. FISCHER, EDITOR

Near misses

Unfortunately, when it comes to energy policy, it takes political panic to get anything done. Everything about President Bush’s energy policy was correct as far as direction goes, but providing a secure and plentiful energy future just wasn’t important enough to be funded seriously. The past and present Congresses have mirrored Bush’s approach with a series of “near misses.”

“Clean coal” is one near miss. Strictly speaking, it should be called “cleaner coal.” Nevertheless, given coal’s abundance, clean coal is a goal worth pursuing, especially since most of the required technologies are already known-it’s just a matter of integrating and perfecting. After funding and hyping the so-called “FutureGen” coal plant of the future, the US Department of Energy is now ending that funding, after spending millions, because of cost overruns. In typical governmental wisdom, if future technologies incur cost overruns, they aren’t worth developing.

Congress ended tax credits to homeowners for energy efficiency improvements, such as triple-glazed windows, more insulation and high-efficiency heating/AC units. And tax credits for solar-generated electricity and hot water end this year. Apparently, Congress believes that improving energy efficiency is not as worthwhile as it was the previous year.

As everyone is aware, allowing drilling offshore the US in currently prohibited areas is suddenly very popular. Both presidential candidates have done a flip-flop, supporting such drilling after having opposed it. I suppose that even high oil prices and election-driven pandering have silver linings.

In a bizarre move, Republican former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich stated on a TV political show, incredibly, that “oil prices would drop immediately if the ban on offshore drilling were lifted, because markets look ahead.” Gingrich was obviously counting on viewers’ ignorance when he made that bald-faced lie.

Only one problem: It was a Sunday political talk show whose viewers may not have had the requisite profound ignorance. Especially since no expert of any ilk has said first oil would be less than 10 years away, given lease sales, exploration and development lead times. And no one believes that commodities/futures markets look ahead 10 years. It was a beautiful, stupid lie, and a symbol of the level of “informed” debate that is ongoing.

Although it’s not a clear-cut indicator, the lack of commercial hydrocarbon quantities on the East Coast does not bode well for what may lie offshore. Of the 47 exploratory wells that have been drilled off the East Coast, none found commercial quantities of oil or gas. However, there were a few shows.

About 30 miles offshore the Florida Panhandle lies Destin Dome, a large structure that contains at least 1-2 Tcf of gas, maybe more. Not developing it is a shame. Although the structure has been known about for several decades, it took many years and dry holes to find hydrocarbons. After the 2000 elections, then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush ended negotiations about tourism-protected development by getting his brother, President George Bush, to buy out Chevron and set the closest allowable drilling to land an absurd 125 miles offshore.

The Bush brothers then shut down Cypress Field-a small, 40 million-bbl southwestern coastal field whose owners had just shot seismic and intended to increase production.

Note that I implied that tourism was resource based. It would be ludicrous for Florida to admonish the people of Louisiana to develop their coastline for tourism by lining their beaches with high-priced hotels and attractions. (The geology of the Louisiana coast, with its chocolate waters and brown, muddy beaches, precludes the possibility of using that resource to attract tourists.) Yet, when I lived in Louisiana, I knew many people who had no problem dictating to the people of Florida how they should use their state’s resources.

Some 25 years ago, when I was living in Lake Charles working the oil fields, my wife and I drove to the Gulf at Holly Beach. Aside from the brown water and sand, the really offensive showstopper for us was the 10-ft-high piles of garbage and sand, spaced about every 75 ft for as far as I could see.

You could read several offshore platform designations on the waxed cardboard, amid other things that managed to float to shore. Much of it was no doubt from inland waters and from boat traffic in general. I do not know what the coastal trash situation is today-maybe someone who lives there could tell me-since I’ve never been back to Holly Beach. Obviously, 30,000 men living and working offshore, together with all the support that that entails, can create a lot of trash. One thing is certain: Florida tourism could not survive a scene like that.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m soundly in favor of expanding offshore drilling-it’s something that should have been done decades ago. It’s akin to all the politics and dumb rhetoric that surrounded the CAFE (automotive fuel efficiency) standards debate. You remember, the argument about substandard “sardine can” cars resulting in carnage on the highways.

If I could snap my fingers and instantly make US cars average those higher, 35-mpg standards, the effect would be to decrease US oil imports by at least 40%, not to mention commensurate savings on oil consumption worldwide when similar technologies are applied, all else being equal. Of course, all else would not remain the same, but that’s not the point.

The point is that clean coal technologies, offshore drilling, much improved automotive mileage and, for that matter, improved efficiency across a broad range are all things that we should have been pursuing with urgency years ago, as if we knew that a peak in global oil production were imminent.

The stakes for failure are high, as are the resulting energy prices, should a real peak occur. The rearrangement of the global flow of monies into export countries’ coffers should be enough for any president or legislature to act decisively. And don’t forget the real concern of many a sheik and king that the US would use a pretext-any pretext-to grab oil. We need a much bigger ($), longer-term plan with teeth, incentives and investment-and we need it yesterday. 

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing… after they’ve tried everything else.”-Winston Churchill