Letters to the Editor
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We are the superpower.
We still have the largest military industrial complex, and it is disingenuous to suggest an equality of power between a country (Russia) with a $2.076 trillion GDP (purchasing power parity), with our $13.86 trillion GDP (purchasing power parity.) Push came to shove, we'd school Russia.
Countries that need to shut off their neighbor's gas in order to wield influence, are not very influential. Russia has energy and their GDP will continue to increase with the rise in energy pricing, but as of late, their economy is equal to that of France, and unless you feel threatened by France's growing economic influence in the world, you are simply enforcing the myth that Russia is big and bad. It was a canard during the cold war, and it is a canard now.
Russia is strong! Vladimir Putin is strong Russian man who will Judo throw you across room! ...or maybe he will give your belly a raspberry. Whateva, let's get back to fear mongering on Iran.
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Trillions for Bush's war, or a start to revamping our energy infrastructure?
Three trillion bucks would have gone a long way toward figuring out how to transition away from petroleum and into something else, hydrogen being my favorite.
But of course, the usual gang of crooks had to increase their bank accounts as much as possible before the rest of the country tanks. Onward to Iran!
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Russia's oil and gas though plentiful is notoriously hard to extract
The gas is in or beneath inaccessible hard rock. The oil is so thick and high in sulfur that pipelines are very expensive to build and maintain and breakdown almost continuously. And the money that they are making on their oil and gas doesn't seem to get reinvested at the needed rate back into the oil and gas industry.
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Much additional benefit available by increasing no-cost, no-tech carpool lanes
One of the easiest and most underutilized, no-cost, no-tech solutions to our oil addiction is carpooling. It's good that many superhighways already have carpool lanes (and bad that future federal highway funds will turn these into "Lexus Lanes"). However, we can accomplish a lot more with additional carpool lanes.
Consider the typical eight lane superhighway with four lanes in each direction. Assume all vehicles are single-occupant vehicles. Converting one lane (in each direction) to a two-occupant carpool lane increases passenger throughput by 25%, assuming the number of cars and vehicle speeds remain unchanged.
Consider converting a second lane to a carpool lane, with a stricter three-occupant requirement, resulting in a 3-2-1-1 occupant lane configuration for each direction. This produces a 75% increase over no carpool lanes or a 25% increase over a single two-occupant carpool lane.
In the extreme, consider converting a third lane to a four-occupant carpool lane, resulting in a 4-3-2-1 occupant lane configuration. This produces a 250% increase over no carpool lanes, a 100% increase over the single carpool lane, or a 43% increase over the 3-2-1-1 carpool lanes.
I've presented these numbers in terms of increased commuter throughput, but these increases can be traded for decreased vehicle miles and fuel consumption and increased vehicle speeds. In the most congested highways, there may be no tradeoffs at all, as the reduced congestion can increase vehicle speeds AND commuter throughput.
For the cost of adding signs and lane markers, we can create a significant reduction in gas consumption, vehicle pollution, traffic congestion, and miles driven.
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Military Industrial Complex
We still have the largest military industrial complex
And one that is utterly useless without oil. Jets, ships and tanks don't run on hubris.
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How many facts can you leave out?
I especially love the part about where it's so important that Russia is the second largest oil producer, when the second and third place producers constantly switch positions because their output is so close. The other country is the United States, which produces more that TWICE as much oil as the fourth place producer.
Our problem is that we use 20 million barrels per day and we currently produce only about 8.5 million barrels per day.
Also very unprofessional to take Rice's comments out of context. The United States was more threatened by a weaker Russia, because it causes instability in the World. I'd much much rather have a Russia that can afford to guard properly it's nuclear arsenal. For years, nuclear beacons went unguarded, now that no longer happens.
Scientists and military personnel have increasing standards of living, reducing the likelihood of them selling their knowledge on the open market.
BTW, the last two countries in the World that will run out of oil are Canada and the United States, since those two countries have by far the most oil resources than the rest of the World combined.
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Can we please stop being a superpower then?
If we're holding a losing hand, let's not keep raising the stakes. Let's just admit we're no longer a superpower, cancel all our overseas deployments, and shrink the military to a quarter its current size. We can spend the resulting budget surplus on desparately needed domestic infrastructure, basic research, and essential social services.
What does being a superpower gain us, other than the requirement to keep spending all our money on staying a superpower? Isn't this the same feedback loop that broke the Soviet Union - the more they spent on the military, the more their military guys used the levers of power and influence to get more money spent on the military, until the system crashed like an engine with no oil.
Let's not do that here, ok? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
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The numbers...
Interesting to note that, according to the EIA International Energy Outlook report, 2007, Russia produced 9.7 million barrels of oil and related products per day, and exported 7 million. The US produced 5.4 million barrels per day, but had net exports of -12.2 million.
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We Always React
Throughout human history we see major events caused by our inability to forsee and plan accordingly.
The oil "shortage" during the early 70s forced people to conserve gas, forced Detroit to build more fuel-efficient cars, and forced the designers of energy-dependent devices to improve their efficiency.
Most of this energy saving development was driven by government regulations designed to force changes and improvements in products and systems that are energy-dependent. While American car makers were complaining that such fuel efficiency increases were not feasible, the Japanese quietly stole the show by producing great cars that were very efficient. Now, Toyota is the #1 car maker in the world.
Since the 1970s, we have a steady increase in the size and horsepower of vehicles. Engines and transmissions are much more fuel-efficient but that has been offset by vehicles' increased size and power. Americans want huge SUVs and 300+ horsepower cars and huge homes - all consuming so much energy that we are almost to the point that we are being held hostage by foreign oil producers.
So, what planning is taking place today that will decrease our need to import energy? Not much apparently. Congress can't seem to get an increase in the CAFE standard because so many members are beholden to the energy industry. Carmakers cite the loss of high profit SUVs and fashion pickup trucks if they have to divert more production to hybrids and small cars. Larger and larger single-family homes are being built that require more energy to heat and cool, and public transportation funding is a tough sell in almost every community.
An attempt to force the production and use of ethanol has pleased the farming industry while creating large increases in retail food cost. We are giving a higher priority to our vehicles than we are to our food supply. Congress has egg on its face for stampeding this legislation without realizing the full consequences.
Can we make a 180 degree turn in time enough to avert another energy crisis? I believe the answer is "No."