Beyond Purview

Beyond Our Vision

Thanks to the Oil Drum and the Energy Bulletin, I picked up the new report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

It is entitled "The National Security Consequences of Oil Dependency"

In the forward, Richard Haass, the president of the CFR, says the following:

"In recent years, energy prices have surged. President George W. Bush, in this year's State of the Union address, warned of an addiction to imported oil and its perils. Yet there is no consensus on what should be done to shake the addiction. Virtually everything concerning energy has changed - except U.S. policy.

The Council on Foreign Relations established an Independent Task Force to examine the consequences of dependence on imported energy for U.S. foreign policy. Since the United States both consumes and imports more oil than any other country, the Task Force has concentrated its deliberations on matters of petroleum.

In so doing, it reaches a sobering but inescapable judgement: the lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and national security."

(clip)

OVERVIEW

The challenge over the next several decades is to manage the consequences of unavoidable dependence on oil and gas that is traded in world markets and to begin the transition to an economy that relies less on petroleum.

The longer the delay, the greater will be the subsequent trauma. For the United States, with 4.6 percent of the world's population using 25% of the world's oil, the transition could be especially disruptive.

During the next twenty years (and quite probably beyond), it is infeasible to eliminate the nation's dependence on foreign energy sources. The voices that espouse "energy independence" are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future and that encourages the adoption of inefficient and counterproductive policies.

Indeed, during the next two decades, it is unlikely that the United States will be able to make a sharp reduction in its dependence on imports, which currently stand at 60% of consumption.

The central task for the next two decades must be to manage the consequences of dependence on oil, not to pretend the United States can eliminate it."

"NOT TO PRETEND THAT THE UNITED STATES CAN ELIMINATE IT?".

This is not a report.

This is a recipe for War.

And speaking of War, here is the newly published Iraq Study Group Report.

One should not be surprised of the lack of vision in the oil report (or the study group for that matter), the Task Force is chaired by John Deutsch and James Schlesinger , two war hawks. It was directed by Stanford Professor David Victor. The Task Force itself was comprised of 27 members, all part of the petro industrial military complex.

We can replace oil with new transportation appliances like Plug In Hybrids.

We can fuel a new breed of electric cars and electric rail with

Renewable electricity from the wind.

We can invent new exciting ways to store energy,

so that we can integrate all forms of renewables.

We can invent new materials to convert photons to electrons,

as we deploy large scale solar power plants today.

We can make this the "moon shot" of our day.

Or, we can march into a resource war,

that will make the other roman numerals look like a dress rehearsal.

We can and must change our belief that the way we do things now,

Is the way we will do things tomorrow,

perhaps only when these old guys are depowered and departed.

The Panel briefly addressed Climate Change.

They said that it was beyond their purview.

I guess their vision was too.


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