Yippee!

Today (well, yesterday, strictly speaking) I was on a conference call with Senator Richard Burr (R, NC) and a baker's dozen of other bloggers about the energy crisis we're experiencing now (which, as Burr points out, is more or less a continuation of the energy crises of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s).

I can't really do the discussion justice right now, so I'll have a fuller treatment tomorrow. Suffice it to say that this is a good time to keep the pressure on Reid and Pelosi, and to let them know that you're noticing which party doesn't want to solve the current energy crisis until after the fall election, at which point . . . lather, rinse, repeat. (We tap dance and try to kick the can down the road. But it'll be okay, if we've got Obama in the White House!)

Yeah, well.

I think it's clear to most multi-cellular organisms that we can't solve our energy problems with any one "silver bullet": it's a multi-faceted problem, and it'll need a suite of solutions.

It's no secret that I'm partial to a lot of the proposals that Zubrin puts forth in Energy Victory, and that I therefore think flex-fuel vehicles could be pivotal in achieving energy independence. And we must increase supply in the short-term with good, old-fashioned petroleum: we've got to drill like we've got a purpose, while looking to Brazil for ideas about the future. And building nukes and wind farms.

But in the meantime, I'd like to see the Zubrin ideas I'm so taken by—in particular, his notion of switching to an "Alcohol Economy" that leans hard on ethanol and methanol—compared to the Pickens plan. Or: the Pickens Plan.

So, discuss, please, my engineering-minded homies. And I'll have more thoughts for you tomorrow. Or at least more data.

Actual coverage of the discussion with Senator Burr, from those who didn't spend the day handling computer upgrades and buying furniture:

• Flopping Aces; and

• Betsy Newmark.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Got it via Insty.

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They are both mythical beasts.

I'm sorry, but if people didn't think Yugos provided sufficient protection, they are not going to buy inflatable cars.

Word.

h/t: Insty.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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over at Classical Values:

If we can't drill our way out of our immediate problems, there is no immediate solution. Why? It is a matter of logistics and infrastructure. Our experience with the transition from wood to coal and coal to oil is instructive. Those transitions took about 75 to 100 years. Why? Whole new methods of production and infrastructure had to be developed. It is a problem of capital and logistics. Take our automotive fleet. It turns over at the rate of about 6% a year. That means a 15 or so year transition period if ALL the new vehicles embody the new energy technology. Add in another 4 to 10 years for the design of the new vehicles and the development of the support infrastructure. Say the new technology is electric of some sort. We need to be able to produce 15 million automotive qualified electric motors a year. So before we can even get up to full scale production of the transition vehicle we need quite a few new electric motor factories. How about power electronics to control the motors? Say the typical motor had a peak rating of 50 KW. That would require 750 megawatts of control electronics a year. Which is no small amount. We don't have the capacity for it. It takes 3 to 5 years to raise the capital and build a new semiconductor plant. Just to get a 15 year transition we would have to build all the support industry all at once. That will take around 5 years provided we know exactly what we want.
Which just goes to show that nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it.

He concludes:

There is no magic bullet. We are going to have to muddle our way through. Slowly. For as long as it takes.

There are a couple of things to do while working towards change:

1. Do not panic
2. Drill for more oil

Read the whole thing.

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Mitch McConnell suggests in the WSJ that—notwithstanding it being an election year, and all that—Congress might consider doing its job with respect to the energy crisis:

The Gas Price Reduction Act is composed of just a few ideas. But taken together, the proposals will address the problem head on. They include deep-sea exploration more than 50 miles off the coasts of the states that want it, lifting a ban on development of the promising and plentiful oil shale deposits in western states, and increased incentives for the development of plug-in electric cars and trucks. The bill also includes provisions to strengthen U.S. futures markets and guard against excessive speculation.

The Gas Price Reduction Act is a sensible approach to gas prices that squarely faces something too many in Washington would rather ignore: the law of supply and demand. Conservation is an idea that both parties support and both parties have addressed legislatively. But if prices are going to go down, supply has to go up too. This means Democrats will have to abandon their traditional opposition to domestic exploration by lifting a congressional ban on off-shore exploration.

Don't forget the flex-fuel vehicles, guys: they're just as essential as hybrids/electrics to the transition we're entering. Probably more so. Unless you wanted to re-build the entire transportation infrastructure of this country from scratch? I didn't think so . . .

(Cross-posted at Right Wing News.)

Via Hot Air.

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It would be a good start.

I've been noticing that gas-price duality among the liberati for years now, and of course it's always made perfect sense to me. That's why I could hear NPR do a piece about the evils of high gas prices in the morning, and that afternoon report that our gas prices are very "low" by the standards of other developed countries. There's no contradiction, really: my lefty friends want to make things hard for the working class at the same time that they want to delude themselves that they really want to make things easier. Give with one hand; take with the other.

I still think we need flex-fuel vehicles (as Robert Zubrin insists in Energy Victory), and an eventual transition to alcohol fuels such as ethanol and methanol. We certainly need to end the tariffs that keep sugar-cane ethanol out of this country, and we must obliterate the ban on the use of shale-oil products in the U.S. military. But we also need to keep the oil flowing, preferably from non-OPEC sources. Like, um, let's see . . . how about the United States? That's one of my favorite non-OPEC oil-producing countries. I like Canada, too. And Mexico's cool. Also: the less we schlep our petro products around, the smaller our carbon footprint. Let's tread lightly on the Earth.

Drilling the OCS is only the beginning; we also must make better use of our own shale oil. And, contra Senator McCain, we must drill in ANWR. As Alaska's Governer, Sarah Palin, is fond of pointing out, the footprint of the proposed facility is the size of a metropolitan airport: in the vastness that is ANWR, you'd be hard-pressed to even find it if you didn't know where to look (or unless you had an ugly-meter on you—that is some hard-core ugly terrain).

So, yes, please: keep the pressure on. Drill that Outer Continental Shelf. But let's press on, here: just a handful of common-sense actions can bring us the energy independence we so desperately need, and bring us relief at the pump.

h/t: Ace of Spades

(Cross-posted at Right Wing News.)

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When I drop an earring at night while getting out of my car, I always lock the car door and head out for the area underneath the nearest streetlight, because if I'm going to look for an earring, I want to do it where the light is strongest.

Likewise, Democratic legislators are now very pro-drilling. They aren't in favor of drilling where there's a good chance of finding oil, but they are pro-drilling. Surely that's progress . . . !

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wants people to know that Democrats like oil drilling. A lot. They're just very picky about where.

"Democrats are saying let's drill. Let's explore. Let's get energy for Americans from America and have it for Americans," Hoyer told reporters Tuesday. He was announcing that Democrats will unveil an energy production bill Thursday.
Asked a minute later if the proposed bill would allow new offshore drilling, Hoyer told IBD no.

"There is not offshore drilling" in the bill, the Maryland Democrat said. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is similarly off-limits. Instead it focuses on drilling in already-leased areas.

Read: areas where the oil companies have already looked for oil, and found none.

Gotta go now: I'm headed to the latest Brighton outlet. Somehow, I never did find that missing earring. Mysterious, no?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:27 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The President has just lifted the ban on offshore drilling. (That is the Executive Order side of it: the congress has its own ban, which remains intact.)

Pelosi calls this move a "hoax"; she'd prefer that we simply raid our own oil reserves. (Because why would you get a job and earn money when you could simply withdraw from your own savings account? The suggestion that we drill in the U.S. and off of its coasts is simply crazy talk.)

People are getting fed up with this obstructionism.

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". . . there's a mighty wind a-blowin', 'cross the land and cross the sea.

It's blowing peace and freedom; it's blowin' equality."

It's also blowin' increased exploration, enhanced use of shale oil, and environmentally sensitive off-shore drilling. It's blowin' development of that tiny pocket of ANWR right next to Prudhoe Bay, where happy caribou cavort around the oil operation and look up at us with their big caribou eyes, silently begging for one more little oil operation in the area, which will give them more warm pipes to nest under.

"More, please," they are saying. "And faster, please."

Listen to the wind. Listen to the caribou. Listen to the new polls. Listen to your heart.

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Smells like a Zubrin-Zucker collaboration . . .

Unless I'm mistaken.

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I'll take a look at this estimate for when we'd feel the effects of offshore oil drilling, but I would think that the effects would hit the market much, much sooner—particularly given the issue of speculation.

Right now, the Gulf and ANWR seem like the most petro-fecund areas, but we shouldn't be taking anything off the table.

(And, you know: hybrids. Flex-fuel vehicles. Fuel-cell research. No tariffs against Brazilian ethanol. More effective use of rail on the Continental U.S. And let's build us some sweet, sexy nukes.

But first—drill, Baby: hard and fast. You know how I like it.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'm only on page 30 of Energy Victory, but the man is speaking my language: his first point is that there is one thing the U.S. government can do to facilitate effective research into new energy sources, and create a more neutral relationship between the petroleum industry and the U.S. economy: mandate that all cars be flex-fuel. Not just ethanol and gasoline, but methanol and gasoline as well. We will always need liquid fuels because of their greater efficiency, so government's place now is to create the conditions such that gasoline, methanol and ethanol can compete on a flat playing field.

And that doesn't exclude hybrid/electric cars: I'm a big fan of both. I just think that there will likely always be a need for some sort of liquid fuel liquid fuel, and we cannot tie our hands regarding what that turns out to be. I love my mom's Prius (except when I'm on a sustained incline), but there's no reason that the internal combustion engine in it has to be petrol-powered. And it's the same for the Volt.

Joy's Program to Save the World:
(1) Flex-fuel vehicles,
(2) enhanced domestic drilling,
(3) continued research into fuel cells [combined with bitchin' cool forms of electric power], and
(4) increased use of alcohol-based fuels.

There is more, but these are the fundamentals right now; I just wonder why no one else sees that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes? Sit him up!

We'll see if Zubrin rearranges my priorities 2-4 above. Right now, though, he and I see eye-to-eye on that first point.

But make no mistake; increasing domestic drilling is only a hair's width behind on my priority list right now. We can't do research properly without buying ourselves the time to do it. And necessity may be the mother of invention, but blind panic is not.

The energy problems are solvable, but we need time, good research, and flexibility.

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. .. rural areas would be more flexible about letting high-schoolers ride their horses to school, under current conditions.

You'd think.

But you'd be wrong!

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So go over to Hot Air and have a good giggle at Harry Reid, who will be solving the nation's energy problems with solar power, wind power, and magic pixie dust. Fortunately, there are no difficulties in storing the latter to use for transportation and other costs.

Read Ed's commentary, too: the problem is not that alternative energy sources don't have potential; it's merely that they are not yet ready for prime time, and pretending that it's otherwise is merely going to risk at least a nationwide recesssion—and possibly a worldwide one.

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But the way I read it, the impact of speculation is such that any obvious steps we take toward energy independence (drilling, alternate fuels, conservation, efficient vehicles) will affect prices much more quickly than one might expect if supply and demand were the only variables involved.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

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