Excerpt
from Who Turned Out the Lights?: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis
by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson
Six Reasons the United States Needs to Get
Its
Energy Act Together
You
can't always get what you want.
--The Rolling Stones
We don't know exactly what the price of gas will be by the time you
have this book in your hands, but whether it's high, low, or somewhere
in between, the fact of the matter is just the same: this country faces
a huge, complicated, and scary energy problem.
Not only is it huge, complicated, and scary, it's daunting for most of
us because it's nearly impossible to understand unless you're some kind
of full-time energy wonk. We all recognize symptoms such as soaring
gas prices and pricey home heating oil. But when it comes to the
disease -- what's causing the country's energy problems and how to cure
them -- that's another story entirely. Confused R Us is more like it.
It's not that the information isn't out there. Type "energy policy"
into Google, and you'll get tens of millions of results. Some of the
stuff is biased and manipulative, and some of it is downright
harebrained. But there is plenty of information from smart,
responsible, fair-minded experts who really know this issue and want to
help. Unfortunately, when most of them talk, they might as well be
speaking Greek (or Urdu
or Basque). All of a sudden, it's "peak oil" and "strategic reserves"
and what's happening at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Want to know
about possible solutions? Prepare yourself for treatises on "carbon
sequestration," "hydraulic fracturing," and the promise of
"photovoltaic cells." Not only is it hard to understand, it can often
be incredibly boring. Say the words "energy policy" often enough, and
you could undermine the entire profit structure of the sleeping pill
industry (not to mention upsetting the little counting sheep from the
mattress company).
Even so, we're convinced that the vast majority of Americans do want to
know what can be done to ensure that the country has safe, reliable
energy at nonstratospheric prices. Nearly all of us want to protect the
planet, the economy, and our way of life. But sorting out the country's
choices is tough -- almost as tough as facing up to them.
Pulling the Strands of the Problem Together
The first step is to pull the far-flung pieces of this debate
together in one place. There's the energy issue with its assorted
disputes over OPEC, oil company profits, speculation in the energy
markets, and how to reduce the country's dependence on imported oil.
Then there's the environmental debate on how to reduce the damage human
beings do to the planet -- global warming, carbon dioxide emissions,
carbon footprints, pollution, that sort of thing. And finally, there's
the economic fallout when the competition for energy heats up and
supplies start getting tight. That's what happened in the first half
of 2008: skyrocketing gas prices, major airlines in financial free
fall, and businesses of all sorts hurting because families have to
spend more on gas and electricity and have less money left to spend on
everything else.
These three issues -- energy, environment, and the economy -- are all
intertwined, and some experts say the country could at some point get
itself trapped in a "perfect storm" with all three problems coming to a
head at once. In the movie The Perfect Storm, George Clooney
sailed his fishing boat right into "the storm of the century" in the
North Atlantic. It was spine-tingling to watch, but he killed himself
and his crew doing it.
For the United States, sailing right into the triple threat we face on
energy is an equally bad idea. Unfortunately, we've been backing
ourselves into an energy corner for a good forty years or more, and the
country simply has to start making some responsible decisions beginning
right now.
Six Reasons to Act
Let's get started with the basics. Here are six reasons the United
States needs to get its energy act together. There isn't much debate
about these facts, but there is plenty over what to do about them.
The country is using more energy than ever. The U.S. population
is
growing, we're doing more driving than we did a few decades ago, and
we have more energy-eating devices than ever. Just think of all the
technology we've added to our lives in the last generation: computers,
microwaves, DVDs, MP3 players, a cell phone for every member of the
family. Since 1949, the total amount of energy used in the United
States has tripled, and we're not done yet.1
Americans
are expected to
consume about 25 percent more electricity over the next twenty years.2
Other people around the world are using more energy too.
According to
the best estimates, global demand for energy is expected to grow by 45
percent over the next two decades,3 and
specialists who
study energy supply and demand are
asking some fairly scary questions about where all that energy is going
to come from.4 The Earth's population is
growing, but it's
not just
that. Roughly a quarter of the world's people don't even have
electricity yet. To improve their lives, developing countries will need
a lot more energy than they have today -- 73 percent more by 2030,
based
on expert projections.5 What's more, people
in developing
countries
such as China and India are now becoming prosperous enough to want to
live the way we do. They like cars and TVs and computers and warm
houses filled with gadgets. Don't get us wrong; this is a good thing.
People everywhere naturally want the comforts money can buy. But it
also means more competition for energy, higher prices, possible
shortages, and potential environmental damage on a scale we've never
seen before.
We're relying on forms of energy that will eventually run out.
In the
last 150 years or so, human beings used about 1 trillion barrels of
oil. Some experts say we could use up another trillion in about thirty
years.6 There is a big debate (which we cover
later) over
whether and
how quickly humankind is running through the Earth's supply of oil, but
some of the predictions are getting uncomfortably close.7
We
can
certainly look for more, and no doubt we'll find it, but some experts
worry that we're rapidly using up the oil that's relatively easy to
access. There's also some concern that in North America at least, the
remaining natural gas supplies are in locations where it will be
difficult (and costlier) to extract them.8
As supplies get tighter, energy costs more. Energy prices tend
to go up
and down, and perhaps the only bright spot in a recession is that
energy prices generally fall because people use less of it (factories
and businesses closing, fewer people driving and traveling, etc.). But
what ever the price of oil may be when you read this book, the overall
trends are just not in our favor. As recently as 2004, many analysts
thought oil would stay at about $30 a barrel for the next decade.9
In
2008, the average for the year was just under $100 a barrel, even
though prices fell dramatically in November and December in the
economic downturn.10 Many experts believe oil
prices will
start rising
again when economies worldwide begin to recover and the competition for
oil heats up again.11 But it's not just oil.
Prices for
natural gas
more than doubled between 2002 and 2008.12
Prices for the
uranium used
for nuclear power also doubled between 2006 and 2008.13
When
more
people want more of something, and it's not lying around all over the
place, and it takes a long time to find it and put it into usable
forms, prices tend to go up. Since we consume energy when we make,
ship, and use everything from big-screen TVs to Pop-Tarts, the price
of fuel spills over into our entire economy.
The U.S. energy supply system is shaky. In 2007, the United
States used
about 7.5 billion barrels of oil and imported 58 percent of it.14
Unfortunately, a fairly large portion of the world's oil reserves lie
in some of its most unstable regions (like the Middle East) and in the
hands of potentially unstable governments (like Nigeria and Venezuela).
That means a whole host of things can go wrong -- embargoes, war,
revolution, terrorist attacks on pipelines. As drivers learned after
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a natural disaster that disrupts shipping
and refining can upset the balance too. But it doesn't require an
international crisis or an act of God to give us problems with our
energy supply. Our electric power grid and oil and natural pipelines
are aging. The older they get, the more they're prone to failure.
Oil, coal, and gasoline -- the kinds of energy we use most -- can be
harmful to the Earth and everything living on it. Burning fossil
fuels
such as these causes pollution and acid rain, and according to most
scientists, it contributes to global warming -- at least the way we do
it
now. But it's crucial to make an important distinction. The United
States has made good strides reducing air pollution and acid rain
because of the Clean Air Act and better technology in our cars and
power plants. Unfortunately, we haven't done nearly as much to reduce
the emissions that contribute to global warming, so that's the next big
challenge. The problem of global warming is "unequivocal," according to
the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.15
It's "clear," according to the American Association for the Advancement
of Science.16 There's "a growing scientific
consensus,"
according to
the U.S. Congressional Budget Office.17
ExxonMobil, which
at one time
supported research by climate change skeptics, now runs ads
highlighting the need to address the problem.18
Even people
with
lingering doubts seem to accept the main point. The grumpy but always
intriguing Charles Krauthammer considers himself a global warming
"agnostic," yet he says he "believes instinctively that it can't be
very good to pump lots of CO2 [carbon dioxide] into the
atmosphere."19
Okay, that's it. We have way more than a quorum.*
Waiting for the Perfect Solution
So there we have it: six solid reasons to rethink the country's energy
policy. Yet despite the dangers, the United States has been stuck in
first gear for years now. We haven't upped domestic oil production much
because of environmental concerns. We haven't moved vigorously to
develop alternatives because we frittered away our time arguing about
whether global warming is real. We invest in the scientific research
and technology to help solve our energy problems only when energy
prices get high. Since we're so fond of big cars and big houses filled
with labor-saving devices, we've barely scratched the surface on
conserving the energy we do have. We've spent several decades just
sitting around waiting for some perfect, cost-free, "please don't
ruffle our feathers" solution to come down from the sky.
That hasn't happened yet, and it won't. But there are lots of
reasonable options most of us can live with. There are lots of
innovations that could help us down the road if we get to work on them
now. This is going to be a long battle, though, and what happens in
Washington, D.C., is just the beginning. What we need is a
state-by-state, power-plant-by-power-plant, business-by-business,
car-by-car, house-by-house rethink.
The United States desperately needs to get a move on in making these
choices, so that's what this book is about: laying out the challenge
and explaining the options. Let's have the debate, make some decisions,
and get on with it.
We started the chapter with a little bit from the Rolling Stones: "You
can't always get what you want." If you've got Mick on the brain now,
maybe you remember that the song goes on to say that you might be able
to "get what you need." Not such a bad description of our situation
right now. If the United States can get its act together on a
reasonable, longterm energy policy, we may well be able to get what we
need. If not, let's hope the next song that comes to mind isn't "Paint
It Black."
NOTES
1 Energy Information Administration, Energy Consumption,
Expenditures,
and Emissions Indicators, 1949-2006, Table 1.5, www.eia.doe.gov/emeau/aer/txt/ptb0105.html.
2 "New EIA Energy Outlook Projects Flat Oil Consumption to 2030, Slower
Growth in Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Reduced Import
Dependence," U.S. Energy Information Administration press release,
December 17, 2008, www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/press312.html.
3 International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2008, www.Worldenergyoutlook.org.
4 Ibid.
5 Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2009,
May, 2009. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/highlights.html.
6 See Randy Udall and Steve Andrews, "Oil Shale May Be Fool's Gold,"
Energy Bulletin, December 17, 2005, www.energybulletin.net/node/11779,
http://planetforlife.com/pdffiles/manifesto.pdf,
and "John McCain's
Energy Follies," New York Times, September 7, 2008.
7 EIA, Frequently Asked Questions -- Crude oil. Question: Do we have
enough orl worldwide to meet our future needs?" http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp#oil_needs.
8 EIA, International Energy Outlook, 2008, Chapter 3, Natural
Gas," www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/nat_gas.html.
9 Congressional Budget Office, The Economic Effects of Recent
Increases in Energy Prices, July 2006.
10 Energy Information Office, Short Term Energy Outlook, Price
Summary, February 9,2009, www.eia.doe.gov/steo.
11 See, for example, Jad Mouawad, "Rising Fear of a Future Oil Shock," New
York Times, March 27, 2009.
12 Energy information Administration, "Natural Gas Navigator: Natural
Gas Prices, 2002-2007," http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm.
13 Energy Information Administration, Uranium Marketing Annual
Report, www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/umar/summaryfig2.html.
14 Energy Information Administration, Frequently Asked Questions,
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp#foreign_oil.
15 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change
2007, Synthesis report: Summary for Policymakers.
16 American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS
Board Statement on Climate Change, December 9, 2006.
17 Congressional Budget Office, Policy Options for Reducing CO2
Emissions, February 2008.
18 Steve Gelsi, Exxon Mobil Redirects Pubic-Policy Research Funds,
MarketWatch.com, May 27, 2008, www.marketwatch.com/news/story/exxon-mobile-redirects-climate-change/stpry.aspx?guid=%7BE8735291%2DC763%2D4A82%2D982A%2DB5E38CF2D571%7D&dist=msr_3;
ExxonMobil, "Rising to the CO2 Challenge," ad in New York Times, February
12, 2009/
19 Charles Krauthammer, "Confessions of a Global-Warming Agnostic,"
National Review, May 30, 2008, http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGI0MDdiZDQ3MGI1ZGYzNWZkZTcwZWM5YzI2MWI5N2U=.
* There are lots of better people than us to explain the
science of
climate change. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maintains a
Climate Change page chock-full of clear explanations from reliable
sources (www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html).
NASA's page, Earth's Fidgeting Climate, is another good place to go (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast20oct_1.htm).
That said, while we have a quorum, complete unanimity is nearly unheard
of in any human endeavor. The prominent physicist, Freeman Dyson, has
written extensively about his doubts. Also, if you're curious about
what the disbelievers say, take a look at The Deniers (Richard
Vigilante Books, 2008) by Lawrence Solomon.
The above is an excerpt from the book Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis by Scott Bittle & Jean Johnson. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
Copyright © 2009 Scott Bittle & Jean Johnson, author of Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis