| Subject: Candidates fight losing battle on oil crisis |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 16:53:29 10/19/04 Tue
In reply to:
Betty
's message, "Modern nuclear power:Cure for global warming & mid-east war?" on 19:45:47 09/26/04 Sun
WASHINGTON - Prices for crude oil and gasoline were soaring, and both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates were vowing to wean the United States from the dangers of dependence on foreign oil.
That was in 2000. It was also in 1976 and 1980, and it's true again this year.
Some things never change, and the inability of America's leaders to deal effectively with energy issues seems to be one of them, but this year the stakes are higher than ever.
Four years ago, the price of a 42-gallon barrel of oil hovered around $35. It's now more than $50. A gallon of gas now costs about 50 cents more than in 2000. And America's dependence on foreign oil increased from 53 percent to 58 percent in that span.
In addition, worries about the growing instability of the Middle East -- where most of the world's oil reserves remain -- are intensifying in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq and the radical Islamic jihad against America.
These negative trends make U.S. energy independence more desirable now than perhaps ever before. And like many modern presidential candidates before them, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry promise, by different means, to steer America toward that goal.
Yet most experts say both men's visions are little more than pipe dreams.
"Is (energy independence) real today, tomorrow or at any point in time?" asked Robert Burns, a senior research specialist at Ohio State University's National Regulatory Research Institute. "It's certainly not real at any point in time today... . It may be real for my children or my children's children."
Energy independence is an unrealistic goal when fuel is bought and sold on a world market where national borders mean little. The amount of oil that could be found by drilling within U.S. borders or saved by greater efficiency is a small fraction of the world oil supply, experts said, and therefore can't do much to affect prices.
World oil demand is increasing while recoverable supply may soon start shrinking. Even at today's high prices, oil remains the fuel of choice for multiple applications, especially transportation, and no substitute is likely for decades.
So experts say that increased U.S. drilling, as Bush wants, and increased conservation, as Kerry wants, are like sand castles built during low tide -- sure to be swamped by more powerful global forces. That doesn't make the efforts unworthy as potential contributors to U.S. energy supply, but it does mean they won't deliver energy independence to America for decades, if ever.
Bush said the key to economic growth was his "energy plan that encourages conservation, spends money on renewables and uses technology, but it's an energy plan, as well, that recognizes we can explore for natural gas in environmentally friendly ways. It's a plan that says, in order to keep jobs here, we got to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy."
Earlier this year, a Kerry TV ad said America needs a plan "that frees our nation from the grip of Mideast oil in the next 10 years. Because no child growing up in America today should ever have to go to war for oil."
The Bush plan, stalled for the past two years in Congress, calls for increased drilling for natural gas and oil in the Rocky Mountains, for natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico (except near swing-state Florida) and for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Oil and gas drilling on public lands is already up nearly 75 percent under Bush. He also proposes to build an Alaska natural gas pipeline, to spur new oil refineries and to increase use of liquefied natural gas and nuclear power. He wants tax credits for energy efficiency and renewable energy and to spend billions of dollars to develop clean-burning coal power plants and, eventually, hydrogen power.
Hydrogen is seen as a distant technical solution, with Bush and Kerry promising billions for research and technology development. The idea is that hydrogen would be used to power clean-burning fuel cells that emit no pollution. The technology isn't available yet.
Kerry's plan also calls for increased drilling, but in areas already open to oil development, such as Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve.
His emphasis, however, is on energy conservation, improved auto-fuel efficiency and much more use of renewable fuels, such as solar and biomass.
Like Bush, Kerry also favors developing hydrogen-fuel and clean-coal technologies and would spend more money than Bush to develop them.
"What their two policies have in common -- Bush wanting to drill for more oil in the U.S. and Kerry wanting to increase fuel economy -- is that neither will have any effect over the next five years," said Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute.
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