Inconvenient Truth about Energy

For those not familiar with how the energy systems work and are easily persuaded to blame oil companies or certain politicians or both for the high price of energy these days, please read the following.

The basic energy blocks for the world are oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydro. In the United States, oil, coal, and natural gas are the only forms of major energy that don’t require a subsidy.  Oil, coal and natural gas are all taxed making them more expensive to the consumer yet still they remain cheaper than all other forms.  Nuclear and Hydro electric require massive up-front expenditures to establish and must be amortized over many years to be economical. 

Exotic forms of energy production such as wind, solar, bio-mass, geo-thermal and ethanol require subsidies because they are less efficient and in each case require more energy to equal the same unit of energy than does oil, natural gas or coal.  What that means is that alternatives energy costs more. 

The knock against oil, natural gas and coal is that it produces carbon emissions when burned as a fuel.  These emissions are classified as greenhouse gases which, certain environmentalists feel contributes to or causes what they call Global Warming as measured in parts per billion.  A highly dubious claim based on poor science and generated by limited climatic data in highly questionable computer models. 

There is no argument that the earth with its atmosphere is a delicately balanced biosphere that sustains life.  The earth actually creates and displaces the same gases naturally. The result caused the atmosphere to form and that sustains life now as we know it.  Further, life on earth actually contributes to the process by consuming and recycling these same gases.  The wacko argument is that human use of hydro-carbon energy is too much for the earth’s natural forces to manage – again, as measured in parts per billion. 

Hydro-carbons, oil, coal and natural gas, remain in an abundant supply in the earth.  The true cause for increased cost of energy is the same whacko environmentalists opposing the use and the production of these resources in conjunction with higher worldwide demand. Limits placed on off-shore and Alaska production of known U.S. oil and gas reserves has limited world market supply.  When demand exceeds supply – the price of any commodity goes up.  Basic economics is the driving force on current energy costs not oil companies. 

That is not to say the quest for a replacement or alternate energy source, such as hydrogen, is unworthy.  On the contrary, the attempt to discover the elements necessary to reach superconductivity in temperatures well above freezing may yet revolutionize the world.  However, in either case or both, the replacement of oil, gas and coal will take time perhaps even decades to convert away from hydro-carbons. 

In the meantime, right now and for the foreseeable future, any nation that wants to maintain its standard of living, its industrial base and thus its economic status must depend on carbon based fuels that remain abundant “if” extracted.  If not, the growing demand worldwide will continue to drive prices higher leading to shortages and ultimately famine, reduced living standards and wars. 

So, the next time you want to blame an oil company or a particular politician for your cost of energy first consider who is really causing all the turmoil.  Is it the Chicken Little wacky environmentalists and their pandering politicians that think there is something to global warming or is it the oil companies that politicians won’t let produce more energy?