The Oil Drum

The gov acts only when the wolf is in the door, eg after pearl harbor and 9/11.
If forethought is needed, pin your hopes on the private sector and the hidden hand.

imo po is here, c+c is down no matter why you think sa is down. Its past time for chris to adjust his bottoms up for higher decline rates. Meanwhile, total liquids are pretty flat if you correct ethanol for reduced btu content... some may be noticing they can't drive as far with the ethanol blends.

Price has already brought po to the poor, no doubt about it, but price has also caught the attention of the private sector, always sniffing for a buck or two. Solar is very close, I today wrote a speculative check for shares in a co that hopes to have printed solar panels on the market next year, and with prices under $1/w by the following year. Expensive silicon is not used, so there is no obvious limit to scale up, or lack of funding if demo targets are met.
Nukes are advanced into the planning stage, some southern communities have voted for them, imo they will be announced before the next election. Dems will not try to stop them whether elected or not... we are likely to see ng shortages and brown outs by spring 2009. The public, and some greens, will be clamoring for nukes.
First I've heard about 4x corn ethanol improvements... imo the public is becoming aware that food = fuel and vice versa, just as some of the right wing south are beginning to focus on the equation fossil burning = gw = hurricanes.

Things will get better and worse. IMO po is accelerating africa down, but the trend was already very well established by vast corruption and thuggery. Even saddam was not as bad as what we are seeing now in deepest darkest, quickly getting deeper and darker. On he plus side for all calling for a reduced population, disease and starvation is helping out on the dark continent.

Nothing wrong re: chavez' changing the energy rules/contracts, and nothing new re: chavez' social experiment. The former will net more money if oil continues higher while the latter will destroy all non-energy production, first and foremost food production, just as it has done on fertile cuba.

Aniya:
I have to grin since lots of my proposals and papers begin, these days, with comments about the problems of future energy supply - which I then tie into the relevance about the subject I am writing about - which may superficially not be related. I am, in short, becoming quite a bore on the subject.

The main problem I was trying to decry is the system inertia that will now occupy the body politic for the next three years, minimizing the willingness of industry to make an investment now since they don't know how the election will turn out - so from that point of view it is not really the candidate that can do much about it. Unless, that is there was broad political agreement say that whoever got in would put a CTL plant in Montana, or accept a nuclear reactor in Manhattan or whatever.

I would like to see a significantly greater investment in relatively novel ideas for addressing the energy imbalance, and this would include programs to stress conservation as well as broader funding for innovation - no matter, in the first go round, if it does not initially meet the approval of "the man who Knows." The problem is big enough that we can afford to fund a few blind alleys, just in case some of them aren't quite that blind.

And the reference to the travel etc related to the scale of the impact that is likely to come about as travel prices rise, since so many "discretionary" industries will become vulnerable.

Aniya,

Yes, I am continuing to write for my colleagues and others. I have had a fairly good response to Our Finite World: Implications for Actuaries, although people still tend to think that the problems are many years away.

My latest is on corn ethanol. (This may eventually be on TOD). I make several points in this article that would be worthwhile sharing with politicians, including:

1. In the volumes produced today, ethanol is a substitute for MTBE, rather than a substitute for gasoline.

2. MTBE, which is made from natural gas, was a US-made non-petroleum gasoline extender.

3. The analysis by EIA of the expected impact of the substituting ethanol for MTBE was that it would reduce gasoline supply and raise gasoline prices.

4. Ethanol is most heavily used between May and September. It seems likely that the substitution of ethanol for MTBE is contributing to the summer run-up in gasoline prices.

5. Large increases in corn production above current levels are likely to have adverse impacts and be unsustainable.

6. When we substitute corn ethanol for MTBE, we are effectively substituting a more expensive US-made gasoline extender for a less expensive US-made gasoline extender (not ethanol for foreign oil, as is commonly assumed).

7. The economic impact of substituting corn ethanol for MTBE is likely to be inflationary. The change likely adversely affects the balance of payments, because corn (and other food) exports are likely reduced.

8. It does not make sense to continue subsidies for corn ethanol.

If others agree with my points, it seems like it would be worthwhile getting this message to politicians. I may need to prepare a one page version of my article that could be aimed at politicians.