Autonomous Vehicle Consultant

The U.S. Congress spends far more on time fundraising at the expense of developing policy for environmentally safe, affordable energy to maintain a secure national economy. Here are two headlines that make the point about fundraising:

• How much time do members of Congress spend fundraising?

“It’s estimated that members of Congress spend anywhere from 30 to 70% of their time fundraising.”

• Call Time For Congress Shows How Fundraising Dominates Bleak Work Life

“A PowerPoint presentation to incoming freshmen by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, obtained by The Huffington Post, lays out the dreary existence awaiting these new back-benchers. The daily schedule prescribed by the Democratic leadership contemplates a nine or 10-hour day while in Washington. Of that, four hours are to be spent in “call time” and another hour is blocked off for “strategic outreach,” which includes fundraisers and press work. An hour is walled off to “recharge,” and three to four hours are designated for the actual work of being a member of Congress — hearings, votes, and meetings with constituents.”

If there were Congressional campaign fund raising limits, members of that august body would have far more time to address important energy issues, such as:

High gasoline prices

Export of home heating oil

The low level of proved U.S. oil reserves

Potentially unsafe U.S. nuclear power plants

Problem with nuclear waste

Declining U.S. oil production (i.e., Peak Oil)

Escape from crude oil dependency

The futility of crude oil conservation in the United States

U.S. energy policy

Exporting U.S. oil products: Selling America’s energy security

Marginal growth of U.S. wind and solar technologies

Export of home heating oil

U.S. military and clean energy

Shale gas reserves

Energy subsidies

And…saving the best till last, Global warning

The United States claims to have imposed strict sanctions on the export of Iranian crude oil to prevent the construction of Iranian nuclear weapons. The first headline below emphasizes this U.S. policy with the imposition of ever increasing restrictions. However, the second and third troubling headlines reveal that the U.S. military may have purchased fuel from Iran to support its operations in Afghanistan.

1. US expands oil sanctions on Iran  2/7/13

“THE United States has imposed new sanctions on Iran to choke off its oil income, saying it was necessary to increase the pressure on Tehran over its suspected nuclear weapons program.”

2. U.S. Violating its Own Sanctions on Iran  2/3/13

“An audit of U.S. defense spending in Afghanistan finds the Pentagon may have spent a significant amount of money on fuel for the military there that came from Iran. Congress appropriated billions of dollars of taxpayer money to support the Afghan military and the lack of strict oversight means some of that money may have wound up in Tehran’s coffers.”

3. Iranian Oops: Has Washington Broken its Own Sanctions by Buying Oil from the Islamic Republic?  2/2/13

“There is a high probability that US sanctions against Iran have been violated by its own army. Part of the $1.55 billion in fuel the US bought from Turkmenistan for the Afghan army in the last five years may have originated in Iran.”

Summary: The United States is apparently buying oil from Iran., who would annihilate Israel, and using this oil to support a needless war in Afghanistan. Does this make sense?

A few days ago, I received a delivery of heating oil totally about 150 gallons for my home outside Boston, Massachusetts. The price tag was in excess of $600 at nearly $4.00 per gallon. With, say, 6 -7 oil deliveries during the heating season, my bill would be about $3,600 to $4,200, a challenging cost for an average household income of $50,054.

Shortly after this oil delivery, I saw a TV commercial featuring “Joe for Oil” (aka Joe Kennedy), who pitched his home heating oil delivery service (Citizen’s Energy) for folks, who cannot afford to heat their homes with oil or convert to natural gas.This organization serves Massachusetts and several other cold weather states.

Joe makes the point that, “Citizen’s Energy Corporation exists to help make life’s basic needs more accessible and affordable. At the same time, Citizens Energy seeks to use market opportunities to help the poor and needy.” In his TV commercial, Joe indicated that he contacted major energy companies for home heating oil supplies, but the only one willing to help was CITGO, a Venezuelan state oil company.

One might think that “Big Oil” could afford to help poor households that heat with oil since this industry has an impressive financial record. For example, the headlines below show that “Big Oil” is awash in outstanding profits and tax breaks:

Oil Industry Record Profits

Exxon Mobil profit is just short of record

High Gas Prices Mean Record Profits for Big Oil

Big Oil’s Banner Year: Higher Prices, Record Profits, Less Oil

Oil Industry Generous Tax Breaks

Oil Companies’ $21 Billion U.S. Tax Break Survives Repeal Effort in Senate

Oil Industry Revives Campaign to Avoid Losing Tax Breaks

Tax Breaks – Big Oil Makes Massive Profits whilst the Federal Budget Struggles

Community “Support” from ExxonMobil

As a means giving back to the community, ExxonMobil makes the following claim on its website:

“As we invest in communities, we pursue long-term projects with strategic goals that are aligned with global and social priorities as well as our business strengths. We seek to have a more meaningful impact by focusing the majority of our spending on significant challenges in the regions where we operate.”

ExxonMobil Hypocrisy 

Unfortunately, the alleged community investment of ExxonMobil does not help those forced to make a choice between paying for home heating oil or buying food. That’s where Joe Kennedy and the Venezuelan government step in.

Recently I received an email from Energy Citizens with an invitation to, “Join us for a telephone town hall to discuss natural gas exports on Friday, February 1st at 1:00pm. Learn more about why the world needs American natural gas and how that creates more jobs and energy security here at home.” Energy Citizens is a “front organization” for the American Petroleum Institute (API), a lobbying group for the fossil fuel industry. There is considerable discussion on the export of natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) due to its abundance created from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (i.e., “fracking”)

Exporting natural gas (i.e., via LNG) would lead to domestic price increases, rippling throughout the U.S. economy and affecting the following:

• Electric power generation
• Residential heating,
• Space and water heating,
• Cooking
• Drying
• Commercial cooling
• Food service industry
• Combined heat and power
• Building block for methanol and its derivatives
• Natural gas vehicles

Price increases would enrich a relative few. However, the rest of us would “pay the price.”

It is not in the best interest of the United States to export natural gas because it is a non renewable energy resource. I am not aware of any other replacement energy resource that would be affordable, available and on a commercial scale to sustain the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States regarding the bulleted areas listed above.

The graph below illustrates the history of oil production in the lower 48 states with increasing production, reaching peak production and subsequent declining. This graph also shows increasing oil imports to off set declining domestic production. Why should the fate of natural gas be any different? Exporting natural gas would cause the production curve to reach a plateau sooner. What will the collective “we” do after the supply of natural gas has dwindled to insufficient levels?

According to the Boston Globe, “The French military assault on Islamist extremists in Mali escalated into a potentially much broader North African conflict on Wednesday when, in retribution, armed attackers in unmarked trucks seized an internationally managed natural gas field in Algeria and took at least 20 foreign hostages, including Americans.”

“Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called the gas-field attack a terrorist act and said the United States is considering its response. His statement suggested that the Obama administration could be drawn into a military entanglement in North Africa that it had been seeking to keep at arm’s length — even as it has conceded that the region has become a new haven for extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda.”

There have been several dozen wars in Africa during recent decades, including brutal conflicts such as the Rwandan, Burundian and Nigerian civil wars. It is noteworthy that that the United States never intervened in any of these civil wars and many other mass slaughters in Africa. An exception to the U.S. policy of near total disinterest in African carnage has been the alleged need for the United States to support the overthrow of Gaddafi during the Libyan civil war in 2011, ostensibly to avoid a massacre in that country.

In a blog post of October 31, 2012, I wrote that oil was the real motivator for U.S. military support of British and French forces in the overthrow of Gaddafi. With oil reserves of nearly 46 billion barrels (world rank of 9), Libyan oil, and unhindered access to it, is vitally important to the stability of a world economy. In contrast, Syria has approximately 2.5 billion barrels of oil in reserve (world rank of 33) and its potential absence in the world market is not important compared to Libya.

Given the relationship between geopolitics and fossil fuels, it is easy to understand why the United States is contemplating military intervention in Algeria. That country is ranked 16 in terms of oil reserves (12 billion barrels). With a world ranking of 10 in natural gas reserves, Algeria has nearly 4.5 trillion cubic meters (about 120 trillion cubic feet).

Conclusion: In recent years, the United States government has been noticeably disingenuous by avoiding mentioning access to fossil fuels as a reason for military engagement. To the best of my knowledge, the mainline media (NBC, MSNBC, CNN, etc.) has almost never undertaken any serious investigative reporting on the role that fossil fuels play in the arena of international politics. Why? Peak Oil?