I was watching the news tonight and lost my cool over the gas news. Yep, $3/gallon is painful, 48 bucks to fill up my Ranger. I really lost it when I hear our leaders, who ought to know better give some combination of "big oil" and "speculators" as the problem, not anything they have done in the past decade. The idea that they can buy us off for $100 is also insulting. The media, bless their pointy heads, seems to want to give the pols a pass.
Take the mantra "we need eliminate our dependence on foreign oil." Do we do this by increasing supply under our control by drilling known reserves (Anwar) and pretty sure reserves off our coasts? Nope, we get a dose of "alternative fuels." The Democrats are very proud of years of preventing drilling known reserves. They have saved the planet. We also haven't increased capacity and infrastructure to keep up with growing demand.
I admit that conservation is a great way to reduce dependence and price of a commodity. However, the holy grail of conservation will not do what "they" seem to want. So, how do you keep the economy going and get out of foreign oil dependence? Increase domestic supply. If we had started in 2000 as Bush Proposed, Anwar would be producing ~1 million bbl/day. Domestic oil production is about 5 million bbl/day (25% of consumption). Anwar would ad another 5%. I'm not sure what expanding the Gulf and Cal coast would do, but it would decrease outside dependence.
The shock of gasoline prices is a function of supply, demand and government meddling. Supply is adequate until you get to refining and distribution. Demand is increasing. Prices go up when that happens. Government meddling is a real culprit. First we go to ethanol, which adds costs due to added transprotation, storage and equipment at terminals. EtOH can't be put in gasoline in the pipelien. Guess who really pays for the added cost. Ethanol is in short supply and is still supported by subsidy and tariff's. Heaven forebid that we would be dependent on Brazil for ethanol. Ethanol adds about $0.13/gal to the price and has the added benefit of reducing fuel economy by ~5%. Do the calculations, ethanol gives 80,000 Btu/gal on combustion and gasoline is gives 135,000 btu/gal. Since the engine works on energy released on burning, the addition of 10% EtOH gives about 5% fewer Btu's, so economy suffers.
Ethanol has another problem. It takes more energy to produce a gallon than you get back. I suppose we could make it up on volume, NOT. Great idea, but you have to know going in that EtOH will be energy negative. Remember, corn takes lots of nitrogen, from ammonia, which is made from natural gas and requires fuel to plant, harvest and energy to convert and distill. There isn't enough land in the US to supply a 100% replacement of gasoline by ethanol. Bad idea and the bulging brains in Congress mandated it. No one calls them to task for increasing the cost of fuel. They get a complete pass by the media.
Hydrogen is worse, from an energy standpoint than ethanol. And we have no infrastructure. So the pipedream of going to a hydrogen economy needs some stupendous breakthroughs to be feasible. Only Iceland, with free geothermal energy, can afford to go to hydrogen.
And forget nukes. We've spent years making nukes impossible and using up natural gas because it is "cleaner." Coal is in abundance, but we think it is too dirty to use. Also, the Syngas project flopped big time three decades ago.
When you chip in a blank check and 2 credit references to fill your tank, think about the good old boys and girls in Washington. They helped create this mess and they get a complete pass with no memory of where they stood on the issues.
Maybe its time to remember and send them home.
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