Peter Friedman’s essay in Monday’s editorial section sounds like another press release from the Bush administration: Don’t blame the Republicans for the current energy crisis, and if it were not for Bill Clinton, we’d be bathing in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil by now, and would have made more progress in exploiting oil shale and nuclear power.
Never mind that even John McCain has opposed drilling in the ANWR, or that exploitation of this area was rejected in the Senate in 2005 – under Republican watch. Or that two U.S. Geological Survey reports, one from 1987, the other 1998, disagree on the quantity and location of possible oil. Or that the 2008 Energy Information Agency’s 2008 report predicts a maximum of 780,000 barrels per day after 20 years of development. (The U.S. currently consumes 21 million barrels per day.) Their report also estimated that the additional supply would create a reduction in oil prices of only 47 cents per barrel.
But these are all speculations. EIA admits in a May 2008 report, “There is little direct knowledge regarding the petroleum geology of the ANWR region.” In other words: We don’t really know.
Dr. Friedman claims that the Green River region in the Southwest has three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia in oil shale. However, a 2006 Congressional Research Service report stated, “… oil shales have not proved to be economically recoverable, they are considered a contingent resource and not true reserves.”
It turns out that oil shale doesn’t actually contain petroleum, rather a substance called kerogen, a petroleum precursor. According to the report, extracting “oil” from shale requires strip mining vast areas, lots of superheated water for a process called retorting, and results in vast environment destruction and groundwater contamination.
And after all that, the report continues, – “unlike conventional crude oil, oil-shale distillates make poor feedstock for gasoline production and thus may be better suited to making distillate based fuels such as diesel and jet fuel.” Kerogen also has high nitrogen content, making it “problematic in terms of producing stable fuels.”
After a number of federally funded oil shale research programs, federal support for oil shale research ended in 1985 – smack in the middle of the Reagan administration.
It may well be that some newer, cleaner form of nuclear power can be developed that addresses valid public disposal, capitalization, decommissioning and security concerns. Perhaps the book hasn’t been closed on this technology, but I want it overseen by a less secretive and much more transparent government, with contractors above reproach. I don’t see that happening under a Republican administration.
Dr. Friedman doesn’t mention conservation once and doesn’t accord other forms of energy source any space in his piece, despite the fact that conservation can prolong energy reserves and ameliorate environmental problems, and that the use of alternate energy sources would not only provide energy and harm the environment less, but provide a new technology focus for American jobs.
The only point on which I agree with Dr. Friedman is that we can’t blame the Republicans. Yet we desperately need an energy policy based on values that don’t emanate from buddies in the oil industry.
And it won’t come from Republicans like Dr. Friedman.
This was published in the Standard Times on July 10, 2008
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/20080710/opinion/807100317
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