
 |
|
Nov. 20, 2009
Nov. 19, 2009
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game
with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf
with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith
with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Nov. 12, 2009
JWisdom.com Does God get tired?
with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven
with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole
in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to
have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 30, 2008
/ 27 Sivan 5768
Energy fantasies: Independence is impossible, but we need to develop new sources
By
Jack Kelly
| >
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The headline on an otherwise first rate story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last Monday was: "Coal may hold solution to gas prices."
The story was about technologies to convert coal to gasoline and diesel fuel. The Shenhua Group, a Chinese firm, will open this fall in Mongolia a plant that is expected to produce 50,000 barrels a day of low sulfur gasoline and diesel fuel by 2010. The Shenhua Group is using technology developed mostly in the U.S., but we have no comparable projects here, even though coal can be converted to oil for between $60 and $70 a barrel.
A plant like that in Pennsylvania or Ohio or West Virginia would provide some welcome relief, plus hundreds of well paying jobs. But Americans consume 20.7 million barrels of oil per day, the equivalent of 414 Shenhua plants at full capacity. Promising as the technology is, there is no way CTL (coal to liquids) can be a "solution" to high gas prices. No one thing can.
We're in the fix we're in in large part because our political leaders have believed in the energy equivalent of the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy. Energy independence is a pipe dream. "Green" energy is a pipe dream. So is the notion that we can conserve our way out of dependence on foreign oil.
The American Public Transportation Association estimates Americans who ride buses, subways and trains "save" 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline a year, or about 70 million barrels of oil (about 19.5 gallons of gasoline can be produced from the typical barrel of oil). That's about 191,780 barrels per day. If public transit ridership doubled, that's about what we could expect to save. It's nothing to sneeze at, but the savings would be equivalent only to what four Shenhua-style CTL plants could produce.
Environmentalists who tout savings from conservation tend to dismiss the contribution drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve could make to our energy supplies. But the estimated production from ANWR (a million barrels a day for 30 years) is five times what we could expect to save from the unrealistic goal of a doubling of mass transit ridership.
A more promising means of oil conservation would be if more of us traded in our gas guzzlers for hybrid-electric cars. The Toyota Prius gets 44.6 miles per gallon, compared to a U.S. fleet average of 19.8. Some hybrids under development promise 60 mpg or more. But a major shift to hybrids would require a huge increase in electrical generating capacity, and environmentalists have been as hostile to building electric power plants as they have been to drilling for oil or mining coal.
It's time we put away the fairy tales and did the math. There's no quick solution to the fix we're in, and no easy solution. We're going to pay a severe price for 25 years of folly. Energy independence is a pipe dream. But if we start now, in five to ten years we could get our dependence on foreign oil down from the current 60 percent plus to a manageable 25-30 percent.
To achieve that goal, we must produce more oil at home, and use less of it. We don't have a choice between production and conservation. We must have both. But in the intermediate term (other than a hair curling depression) only a massive shift to hybrids can reduce substantially our dependence on oil. And this can't be done without a big boost in electrical generating capacity, which in the next five to ten years can be accomplished only by building nuclear power plants lots and lots of nuclear power plants because only nukes can generate the volume of electricity required at an affordable price. Putting some of them on military bases could help deal with the NIMBY (not in my backyard) problem.
Congress must abandon its historic role as part of the problem to become part of the solution.
-
Legal obstacles to drilling in ANWR and off our coasts should be relaxed or removed altogether. (Perhaps some environmentalists would be mollified if, in exchange for the right to drill on the 2,000 acres in ANWR where the oil is, oil companies could be required to add 2,000 acres to national parks people actually visit.)
-
Congress should provide consumers with substantial tax credits for buying hybrids, or for making energy saving improvements to our homes.
-
Large tax incentives are required to attract the huge amount of capital needed to build CTL plants, nuclear power plants, and solar power plants. Providing those incentives would be as sound an investment in America's future as building roads and canals were in Henry Clay's day, or railroads were in Abraham Lincoln's day.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a
deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan
administration. Comment by clicking here.
Jack Kelly Archives
© 2008, Jack Kelly
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Lewis Grossberger
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Jim Mullen
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Lori Borgman
The Savvy Consumer
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Every Monday Matters
Nutrition Myths
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|